The point is, in our system there are no, there’s not enough psychological input. No psychotherapy as such. Is really very little. Now my son has been seen by psychologists, but only two sessions.

Really? Over the twelve years?

Yeah, in that ward. And that doctor was very good, but he did stir it up a bit for him. But that man left for a nicer job in America. And the next psychologist, he just come in the post now this month, and hopefully he’ll get a chance. You see, everybody knows that this is a mental illness, that he’ll need a lot of talking to get it out of you or whatever it is. But there’s no money in studying the proper psychotherapy. So even the Prime Minister recently said there’s a lot of people with depression and all and therapy will help bring them back to work. Well where is the money? He’s not investing any money for psychotherapy. There are no psychologists on the ground, this is the problem.

They do a lot of drugs here in the country so that is why the mental health is more. Do they, -they do have them in the street -like in Africa you can’t see them in the street, you can’t count many people. They are naked in the street, you understand, they don’t dissociate but those that are here they are not actually helping them, they are not helping them. -Because -what they are not supposed to be doing, they are still doing it. It needs iron hand, if actually you love people you’re taking care of. Mental health needs iron hand, it’s not something you pet people over, you don’t pet them, just be straight for once, you understand? And they need counselling from ministers, -you understand. And there are some, you know, that are actually OK, but the counsellors, I don’t know if it is the counsellors they call them, they don’t release them, they don’t want them to just go like that. Well they are already OK but they don’t release them, so go on do something meaningful with their lives. I had somebody who was talking in the, on TV, they say they are to facing their prayers before they release them from the rehab, you understand, so I was just smiling, do you understand? Some of them are already well but the government will not release them, why, why is that?

Earlier in the, at afternoon visit I went to leave the ward and I said to one of the nurses, like asked her where the public toilet was so she told me and as I was turning to leave I had this pashmina round my neck. I caught the eye of this woman who I’d seen being violent before coming up to me and I’m thinking, ‘right I’m going, I’m getting away from her. And she caught me by my scarf and was just like, I was being like half strangled. It took three really big nurses to get her off me. So just like more, it was just like, I was going like this more layer and layer of trauma and stress and bad treatment, and it was just like as though it’s a nightmare, I kept thinking, ‘oh I’m going to wake up, and this is like, this isn’t a nightmare’, this is going on. So as I went back because my dad was, I’d told my dad I was going back and I went back in three hours later. That’s right, I went to see my auntie, went back thinking if somebody else comes up to me I’m just going to wallop them because I’ve just had enough. So then there’s this, yeah, this bang and the crash and the nurses are running around. Then they realise the problem’s in the side room opposite my dad. Oh, they’ve moved my dad to a side room closer to the nurse station by now and they’d given him like a bed table because we’d asked for things, but only because we’d requested it. And then the nurses were, couldn’t get into this room opposite and it was in darkness. It was the same three big nurses pushed their way into this room. It was a man, it was a male patient in there on his own I had noticed the day before. They put the light on and I could see these naked legs and I’m going ‘oh’, I’m like ‘now what?’ And it was the woman who had attacked me earlier and she was naked, and I’d seen her naked before from the waist down in a male dormitory on the ward, on the floor. And I’m going, like ‘what?’, you know. So she’s been in there, she could have assaulted that man. How do I know she’s not in here interfering with my father when I’m not here, whos vulnerable?

It was one of the worst days of my life, Jorun. And I just felt like everything I had campaigned for and kept my dad safe and independent and free, and my dad was looking ill, you know. I’d seen him earlier in the morning, at 9 oclock in the morning I went in and he was doubled up in pain, and he was clearly not ready to be moved anywhere. And obviously he had bone cancer everywhere so any move was just making him feel worse. So eventually they called me in and I saw, I was just at boiling, at like blowing up point. I could have just really punched somebody because this is four years. Four years of my father having had dementia, four years of standing up for him knowing that I had been the person that had kept him free. And then at a time when he was so ill they sectioned him. So I went in, and the psychiatrist said, ‘we’ve sectioned your father. And I said, ‘but he’s not well enough to be moved from here’, and he said, ‘oh well the consultant says he’s medically fit to be moved from the ward. And then I looked at the GP and I’m going, ‘what are you doing here?’ Because I’ve, he had been part of the problem. So then the psychiatrist immediately starts defending the GP and is like, ‘oh don’t speak to him like that. Then the social worker says, ‘we couldn’t get the GP that your father now sees in the practice, and also Dr, this doctor has been seeing your father for a couple of years and knows him well. I was just so angry. At that moment, and ever since all communication with the social, my dad’s psychiatrist had been nonexistent.

So I went down, said the same thing to the staff nurse, he said the same thing. I came back, gave my dad some more water, went down the third time and I said, ‘My dad needs a doctor and if you do not call one I’m going to go and get one from the general hospital and I’m bringing one back because my father is really ill. So eventually he called out the doctor. She came in and they started, they thought because of my dad’s heart problems they thought he was having a heart attack. Did an ECG, everything looked normal but she’s asking me about my dad’s medical history and I said, ‘but it’s all in the notes. I am exhausted, I’ve had two weeks of hell here and my father has been neglected. Why are you asking me everything?’ And she says, ‘oh the notes’, she said, ‘the notes aren’t here. So she said that my dad was dehydrated, that he really needed an intravenous infusion. Because he was on a psychiatric unit he couldn’t have one because of health and safety, and so I said, ‘well he needs to be moved to a general hospital today then’, but she wasn’t prepared to call up a consultant who can release somebody, obviously, from a Section. So she said, I said, ‘they’re not looking after my father. She said, ‘well we can get more fluids into him. I said, ‘but they’re incompetent here. This is why he’s in this state that he’s in now.

So basically they were going to let my dad die. They could have covered up all of their neglect. So, -but they weren’t feeding him and I know, I think they were just throwing the food away, because the way things were emptied, like the soup thing and the plate, it didn’t look like, because, you know. And also, because I’ve worked in a hospital I know what happens. So I went away for a while thinking I’ve got to go out for an hour, and I came back at about 5 oclock and I looked at my, -because I was always looking at my dad’s charts and I’m going, his blood pressure is going right down. It was like 75 over something. I’m thinking it should be at least 120, and my dad’s all like, and he’s lying flat. They were going to just let him die. So I got, -I woke my dad up again and I got him a drink and I said, ‘I’ll be back in a minute. I went out and there was this junior doctor on the ward and I said, ‘I trained as a nurse. Can you tell me what my dad’s haemoglobin is please?’ And he said, 7. So I said, ‘so when is my dad getting a blood transfusion?’ So of course they had to do it. He obviously checked with his boss, and then I stayed there until, -whilst he’d put the blood up and I said, ‘Dad’, because my dad had kept pulling out the drips. But they weren’t, -he was just so unhappy. He was like, it was just like I kept saying, well my dad shouldn’t have been back round here. He should never have been moved from this hospital.