I’m not going into detail, but last night was a very bad one and I ended up going to the hospital and being fed charcoal. The charcoal made me nauseated and throw up, and the doctors wouldn’t prescribe the medication that works for me. This doctor then said I could go home, if I didn’t feel suicidal. I told him that suicidal ideation is just something I live with every day, but I don’t have an active plan. He said I could go home, so I removed my IV. I was then told I was being apprehended to the emergency psych unit. I asked why, since the doctor had just told me I could go home. I said I really didn’t want to stay in hospital, and within seconds, two nurses grabbed me roughly and jerked me off the stretcher. I need to make it clear, I was only speaking, and not even loudly. I was just asking questions. They dragged me off the stretcher and restrained me to a wheelchair. During this whole thing, I’m not resisting. I’m not fighting. The only thing I said was, “Ow! You don’t need to hurt me!” Next, they wheeled me into a cell like room, with a camp mattress on the floor, a toilet with no seat at the end of the room, and that’s it. I was told to remove my clothing, and I did, assuming they would give me some kind of hospital pajamas to wear. They gave me one fairly thin blanket. I curled up under this blanket, and I was really cold. So I curled up with my head under the blanket to try to keep warm. A nurse comes into my room and says, “If you keep hiding under the blankets, I’ll take your blanket away and you’ll lie on a cold mattress in your underwear, and we can all look in on you through the windows and cameras. How would you like that?” And I said, I’m not doing anything at all with the blanket except curling up under it!” I told this same nurse that I was freezing and still feeling sick from the charcoal, and could she please give me some anti nausea meds. Instead, she and another nurse came in and said that they needed to give me an anti-psychotic to calm me down. I asked, “What is it?” They gave me a name, and I said, “I’ve never heard of it, I’m not comfortable with this and I don’t consent to taking this medication. I don’t even know what….” But before I could finish my sentence, one of the nurses was grabbing me roughly and trying to pin me down with her weight. I exclaimed “Wow, you don’t have to pin me, I’m not even fighting you! I was lying on the mattress asking a question. NO combativeness whatsoever.” When I said this, the nurse got off me and asked me to roll onto my side, which I did, without a fight. I repeated that I am not comfortable being given medicines that I don’t know what they are. Whatever it was, it knocked me out. This all happened at Nanaimo Regional hospital last night. I’m incredibly disgusted by the complete lack of compassion and dignity the night staff showed me last night. The day staff were much better and kinder. But what kind of psych nurse thinks putting a traumatized patient on the floor on a mattress, naked, and threatening to take a blanket away, would help that person in any way? No you just taught me not to go back to emergency rooms thank you. Next time I have a mental health emergency I’ll just not go to hospital, because there’s no way I’m being treated like that. #Nanaimo #NanaimoRegional #psychology #hospital #mentalHealth #CPTSD
