Please don’t get me wrong. I don’t think violence toward anybody is a good thing.
But I have witnessed dramatically consequences when an inpatient has assaulted a staff member depending on the hospital.
Some wards will restrain the patient then subdue them chemically.
But I have also been on wards where the staff instantly call the cops and the patient goes to jail.
Now I appreciate there is no such thing as a typical case of a patient assaulting a staff member. Each patient is in a unique situation with their own individual illness, personality, environment and biology.
I think what I am trying to say is that some wards, in my opinion, took such a zero tolerance policy towards aggression, that in my eyes it betrayed a lack of understanding about illness. Some patients are obviously very ill and have little control over so,e of their actions.
I appreciate why institutions take a zero tolerance approach across all wards, but I really feel acute psychiatric wards are a lot more complex and blanket policies don’t serve the patients best interests. It seems to me some I’ll people are getting denied medical care and are getting shunted into the jail system because it is more convenient for psychiatric staff.
Now don’t get me wrong. I have been on enough wards to know some patients on acute psychiatry wards are plain mean and have full control over their actions. But I have also seen those who are clearly very ill.
What are your thoughts and experiences on inpatient care. Please don’t identify yourself or the ward. I just want general impressions here.
I’ve never really noticed much aggression towards staff in my stays. It’s sad to think about. I wanted to work at a mental facility at one point. I guess it would be nice to know a martial art or be big in stature.
Violence is usually directed towards security. Ive done it. Im ashamed of it. But i calmed down and apologized yet i still got dosed and was out for three days. Thats what you get for punching a peace officer i guess~ (i said i was ashamed)
But i have been told a story by a real nice young female nurse who almost got punched by a patient, security had his ass on the ground before that would happen though.
When I got pinned down to the ground by the police for trying to escape from the building. I bit the policewoman on the hand. I did it to try and escape. I thought I was dying and so wanted to be with my family not locked up in a small hospital room with no loved ones. They made my handcuffs extra tight for the whole night and it was so painful. i had bruising all around my wrists the next day when they came off. I think that was uncalled for.
I have never seen violence towards the staff. In fact, I didn’t even see violence among the patients. We all got along. I was scared of everyone, and I think others were too, but that was as bad as it got. Granted, I didn’t stay long at either place. Once I started panicking and put in a request to get out in three days. I wasn’t totally gone either time- just dangerous to myself.
I saw a guy hold a nurse hostage in an office. I don’t know what they did with him but he was gone as soon as they got him out. It is a rather complex issue.
i used to (and still slightly) have extreme beliefs and delusions that led me to become verbally aggressive and verbally confrontational.
i never got physical but they had to send me to the padded room twice during the same stay to get haldol and ativan shots and a third time when I was aggressive about wanting to leave so i could go back to work and leave the hospital.
long story short, I was never physical but I was given shots 3 times back to back during a single stay in the psych ward.
don’t forget the emergency room where they gave me about 2 shots. I used a lot of swearing. i cussed like a sailor to the hospital staff.
I think restraint is necessary sometimes unfortunately, in situations where others are in danger. I don’t believe in locking someone in restraints for a whole day which I’ve heard has happened before but I do think giving some sort of calming/sedative medication is better than locking someone up. Personally I’d rather be knocked out medically than held down or strapped to a table or something. That sounds awful and like I’d get even more freaked out.
I don’t think the person should be sent to jail and I do think that shows a lack of understanding of the illness. You don’t know what’s going through that person’s head, they may think the staff is a legitimate danger to them and their life is at stake if they don’t fight. A person like that isn’t a criminal and should not go to jail.
I remember a woman patient attacked a visiting female student intern; she came up behind her for no reason and just started swinging. It didn’t look hard enough to hurt but the intern was in tears and they strapped the patient into a chair in the hallway in front of the nurses station. Then this guy came up to the woman in the chair and started taunting her. I didn’t think it was very fair and they shouldn’t have just let the woman sit there helpless while that guy was bothering her.
During one Hospital stay, I had written the words UNICEF on an orange in black marker. I was going to donate it to the United Nations in London, England when I was released.
I believed every child is unique, and because nothing rhymes the word ‘orange’, I felt it would be the proper charity to give to.
Anyhoo, the male Nurse LOST my orange!! I freaked out and the security guards started circling me. They were able to calm me down, but I was almost put in restraints and sedated. It was a close call.
I’ve been assaulted by demented patients as a staff nursing aide and as a staff R.N. back in the 80’s and 90’s. It was accepted by the staff back then as just part of the job. The patient’s were thought not to know any better as they were demented. I don’t know what the policies toward demented patients are today. Are they just discharged from facilities today? Or are they physically and chemically straitjacketed, as they were in days of yore? I know the law looks badly on straitjacketing today, so, I’ll bet facilities refuse to take care of assaultive patients now.
the only aggression i ever saw was when i was in the hospital as a teen (11 or 12 or something) and one kid who was severely autistic and had a learning disability got pissed and picked up a chair and tried to throw it at the staff. they just kind of talked him down and he started crying and that was that
If I was a more violent person, I might’ve punched one cna in the face for the way he was giving me lip while on the phone with my sister. And they hung up on my folks who called in I later heard. They were total aholes.
I almost got violent, but not in the hospital. I thought I could hurt the people behind the voices. But recently I had been trying to follow a peaceful way of living, spurred by listening to Miley Cyrus songs and Martin Luther King Jr.
The hospital I was in (U.K.) was a specialist learning disability hospital and most of the patients couldn’t help what they were doing, they never rang the police about assaults on staff. Once I kicked a locked wooden door wide open and escaped causing a lot of damage because they were solid doors with magnetic key fobs and they never rang the police on me. When I first got hospitalised in mental health services one of the patients got arrested for breaking a window. In learning disability ringing the police is the last resort.