A man who has fought the NHS for decades to get mental health support for his wife was told by emergency department staff she was a low priority, despite her being so unwell she became catatonic.
Steve, 63, from Hertfordshire, has supported his wife who has schizophrenia for 30 years and recalls the “horrific” lack of care they experienced when she was at her worst.
Even though his wife had become catatonic and he himself was in a dangerous state, he was repeatedly told that she was not a priority in the emergency room and that there were no available psychiatric beds.
His story comes after a poll of more than 600 people by the charity Rethink Mental Illness revealed that two-fifths of people with mental illness report being told they are too sick to receive NHS care.
The charity, which supports people suffering from severe mental illness, also found in its research that 35% of patients had been told their symptoms were too severe for them to help.
Have you had a similar experience? Email rebecca.thomas@independent.co.uk
Despite the rising cost of living, the Rethink survey found that 35% of respondents turn to the private sector for mental health support.
Independent It has published several articles exposing the scale of the crisis facing mental health services, with some patients waiting more than five days in emergency departments and patients waiting years for treatment in the community.
talk IndependentSteve said his wife, who asked that her identity not be used, had been committed to a psychiatric hospital three times in the past 10 years.
Of the second incident, he said: “She became catatonic again. This came after three or four weeks of a gradual deterioration in her health at home. The crisis team were there every day but her condition continued to worsen.”
“She had begun to self-harm and needed to be taken to hospital, arriving at the emergency department by 8pm. However, by 6am the following day she still had not been seen by a doctor or had her mental health assessed.
“My wife was in a catatonic state and had no control over her body. At 6.30pm we received a call from the psychiatrist saying that you are not a priority and cannot be seen.
“At that point, because I was taking care of my wife in the emergency room, I realized the only way I could make her a priority was to leave her alone. So I had to leave. I had to leave my wife behind. I can’t even describe how painful and difficult that was.”
According to the Rethink survey, a quarter of those surveyed said they lacked follow-up care, and 35 percent said the support they received was too brief to be effective.
Mark Winstanley, chief executive of Rethink Mental Illness, said: “This research reveals the real consequences of mental health services failing to have enough resources to meet demand – people losing their jobs, going into crisis, contacting emergency services and attempting suicide while waiting too long for treatment.”
“NHS leaders have poured huge amounts of money into the system with a clear determination to improve access to care. We cannot afford to fatalize or shrug off the poor access to support and treatment for people with mental illness.”
Steve, a patient representative at Rethink, said: Independent He recently had to threaten to divorce his wife just to stop the psychiatric hospital from releasing her without the proper support and care in place.
He said: “The only way I could get her the help she needed and protect myself was to be proactive and say to the hospital, ‘If you insist on sending her home, I will have no choice but to get a divorce.'”
“I am devastated. It is hard enough to see my wife go through this but then you add the pressure the health service is putting on my shoulders and I feel powerless. I am devastated. I no longer have any confidence that the health service will look after me as a carer. Through it all I feel completely abandoned.”
She added: “We simply don’t have the resources to deal with this issue. Our mental health system is stretched to its limits and can only deal with the immediate crisis.”
“So really, it doesn’t matter how sick you are. It doesn’t matter how delusional you are. The last five or six times my wife has been admitted to hospital and we’ve had to assess her mental health, I’ve been faced with the words: ‘There aren’t any beds available in Hertfordshire’.”