In his morning blog, Cro talked about the state of psychiatric care in the country, discussing its efficacy especially when dealing with the sad case of the recent Devon Shootings.
I trained as a psychiatric nurse back in 1983, just as the big asylum system was closing and the relatively new community nursing system was being set up and greatly expanded.
The nurses, especially on the acute admission wards, were becoming much more psychologically focused in their care and training, like most branches of care, nursing was becoming more academic, research based and professionalised.
It was an exciting time to be a nurse, in many ways but after just three years training and three years staffing on an acute admissions ward I left to become a general nurse. I was burnt out, jaded, and a little cynical.
I was also just twenty seven years old
Very few of our patients were the Conrad Jarrett type. (Conrad was the lead character in the book Ordinary People , the character played by Timothy Hutton in the film version, who was wracked with guilt and depression after his brother’s death) Conrad was cured by the intervention of a kindly old Psychologist after his discharge from psychiatric hospital.
Our patients where the acutely ill psychotic and depressed. Patients that were admitted time and time again when meds were not taken, home stressors remained unchanged and when life too a turn for the worse.
