‘The unit felt like a prison’: The way my daughter was devastated by a medical system meant to assist her
The understanding came to me with blunt clarity that the care unit housing my teenager resembled a correctional institution.
She had trusted unquestioningly in the professionals. We had mirrored that trust. Everything changed profoundly when she was transported from our area facility to the psychiatric facility at Huntercombe hospital.
When we said goodbye, she walked so easily down to the patient transport with me and the therapeutic specialist – who held her close and said goodbye.
As the medical van door opened at our new facility, the imposing building appeared daunting. We were greeted and led up a set of stairs through multiple locked doors, with each door shutting firmly as the attendant waited for all doors to close before continuing.
The facility was totally secured and without windows, with my eyes rapidly tiring from the intense clinical lighting. We were brought to a glass-enclosed space that staff nicknamed the “goldfish bowl”.
The Devastating Separation
Her delicate fingers held my fingers as they informed me that I needed to depart. When I objected that I hadn’t met the staff, they stated that “family members are not permitted on the facility.”
I asked once more, and they agreed I could see her room, just once, but then I had to leave without delay. It was institutional protocol.
To this day, I wake up during the night with my heart racing anxiously while revisiting that path through the common area to Ruth’s designated room. The room contained only a solitary sleeping area and plastic furniture, with fixed glass.
The instructions grew distant as they explained about the continuous monitoring by changing attendants. I placed her luggage on the ground, while Ruth sat frightened on the bed before I was ushered out.
Abruptly, I was confined beyond the double portals, holding a paper that specified I could see my daughter for just one hour, only twice per week.
How could I have allowed to this?
A Tragic Loss
{Our daughter, our girl, passed away on February 14th, 2022 at 18.29 on the pediatric critical care ward at the medical facility in Oxford. She was transferred urgently from the treatment center, an publicly funded but commercially operated children’s mental health center, where she had been allowed to harm herself lethally two days earlier.|Our child lost her life on February 14, 2022 at 6:29 PM in the {pediatric intensive care unit|
