Husband of patient says MUH mental health unit is ‘not safe’

THE husband of a patient who repeatedly banged her head off a wall in Mayo University Hospital’s mental health unit has claimed that the facility is ‘not safe’ for patients.

The man, who did not wish to be named, has claimed that staff in the unit did not intervene after she began banging her head, and failed to do so after she called him in ‘an extremely distressed’ state.

The woman, who has a long history of mental illness, told The Mayo News that she had been left unattended by staff for over an hour during the incident.

Her admission to MUH came following a meeting with her peer support worker when she became distressed.

The peer support worker then contacted her husband to express their concern for the woman. She subsequently fled and had to be involuntarily admitted to MUH on foot of arrest by gardaí that evening.

She had taken an overdose of a restricted medication at the point of her arrest.

Following her admission, the man received a call from his wife which he was unable to answer.

'Extremely distressed'

When he called her back, he said she was in ‘an extremely distressed’ state during a call which lasted 16 minutes.

No nurse came to her attention during this time, even though the man could hear his wife passing through hallways and people talking in the background.

“She had been banging her head and her neck against walls and she can’t remember it happening. People had been saying that she had been doing it again and again and nobody stopped her,” he said.

“She was really embarrassed by this fact because she didn’t want other people to see this. She was embarrassed for herself but also was embarrassed that other people had to watch this while it was happening.

“I could hear that she went from the outside to the inside, I could hear her walking down halls, I could hear people talking in the background and I knew that she changed environment.

“She said she couldn’t find any members of staff and that they were all in the staff room on break having their tea.”

'De-escalation techniques'

The man practiced de-escalation techniques during the phone call before his wife’s phone battery died.

He then called the mental health unit in MUH where he explained the situation to a member of staff who became ‘quite defensive’ over the phone.

“He said ‘You don’t really think that they’re all on break drinking tea do you?’ I said ‘I don’t know where your staff members are. All I can tell you definitively is I’ve been on the phone for 16 minutes practicing de-escalation techniques trying to help her until a nurse was there and that never happened. That’s why I am calling you now.’ He seemed to have acknowledged after that point, he said ‘No problem I’m going to have someone go to her right now’.”

When the woman was involved in a similar incident previously, the man was told by an MUH staff member that patients are generally left to bang their head until they stop of their own accord.

“He wouldn’t give me a number, he just said they tend to stop on their own, which, to me, was a very frightening prospect,” the man said.

The couple have claimed that her ailment has been misdiagnosed and she is not receiving the appropriate treatment.

HSE letter

A letter from the HSE dated July 27 states that the woman had been provided with ‘nine independent consultant psychiatric assessments as concurring with the working diagnosis reached by the treating consultant psychiatrist and their team’.

The letter also stated that the woman was being afforded with treatment that was clinically appropriate to her diagnosis.

The HSE went on to say they did not have the resources to provide her with care in St Patrick’s Hospital in Dublin.

The Mayo News contacted the HSE for a statement on the matter but the HSE said they did not comment on individual cases.