I can only speak for the psychiatric unit. I was taken to the ER during a mental health crisis, and the treatment I endured here was far worse than useless. I was denied food for nearly 12 hours. It took a full day for me to be given a list of rules, and I was yelled at for having belongings nobody told me I couldn’t have. I also have reason to believe a nurse tried to steal my 3DS, considering it was found by another nurse hidden in a drawer and not with the rest of my confiscated items. A different nurse laughed at me for crying when she drew blood out of my hand.
I am autistic. Somebody (a psychiatrist?) got outwardly angry at me for having trouble speaking.
There was no treatment here whatsoever. I was left in solitary confinement on a rock-hard bed. They believe their mental patients don’t deserve even plastic silverware and somehow expect them to eat oatmeal and applesauce with their hands.
The entire unit had only one telephone, and I heard a poor man be told “phone hours” were over when it was finally his turn to call his wife to tell her where he was. He justifiably tried to argue that that didn’t make sense and he was not aggressive. The nurse called cops to come scream at him like he was a criminal. I regularly think about him and hope he’s doing okay.
If you want to die, you will be punished for it at Riverside Methodist Hospital. Help is available, but you will not find it here. I survived despite this place, not because of it.
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