"Dear Kathleen
I
left the conference during the panel session when Angiolina Foster
started speaking. I could not thole any more as an unwaged Carer,
activist, human rights campaigner and whistleblower about the locked
seclusion room abuses at Stratheden Hospital. I thought the event was
more about selling products, apps, jargon, and scaremongering about
elderly people, who in my experience have a lot to offer society but are
stymied by negative stereotypes and seen as burdens rather than
assets. Hal Wolf in particular was peddling his wares just like IHI
Boston, Mass, have done via Brian Robson, Jason Leitch et al. Scotland
deserves much better, in my opinion.
For
nearly 7 years I have singlehandedly supported my son Daniel after
Nurses locked him in the Stratheden IPCU seclusion room without toilet,
light or water, for hours on end. He had to defecate on the floor
because no Nurses heard him shouting that he needed the toilet, this was
on the 4th night they locked him in, 8 February 2012. Because I raised
complaints we were abandoned by community MH services and Fife Council
Social Work together with Fife Police and NHS Fife tried to frame me for
Nurse abuse. I didn't even know they were investigating me until
asking via an FOI request for their Adult Protection Investigation
Report in around the August 2012. I got a paper copy handed over in
Cupar social work office and upon reading found out that my raised
concerns had resulted in me being under the spotlight, not the NHS staff
who for decades have been using this cell to "manage" Stratheden Ward
4/IPCU patients. It was human rights abuse perpetrated on vulnerable
people in need of care and support. I never even knew they had a locked
seclusion room despite engaging with that hospital since 1995.
I'm
not doing the evaluation form, not a good use of my time. I had hoped
for this event to be innovative but I saw no evidence of this in the
Keynote presentations. I could not identify with Anna Fowlie's take on
internet engagement. I did Algol computer programming 1969/70 at Perth
Academy, also 6th year studies Maths. In the mid 1980's at Rigside,
Lanarkshire, where I did grassroots voluntary community development
work, all that decade, along with other Mothers like me, we got an
introduction to computers in the Rigside community hall (now the school
is based there). I'd learnt touch typing in the 1970's then in 1994/5 I
did an HNC Office Admin at Elmwood, best student, taking extra units,
then going into 3rd year BA Admin Management at Fife College 1995/6,
again best student, where we learnt about the global village, Charles
Handy, database management, corporate planning, many other interesting
topics, I was 44. This is the best academic course I've ever done, the
topics suited me very well, doing the degree in 2yrs instead of 3.
In
2008 aged 55 I dived into Scotland's mental health world to promote
peer support, recovery, because I had survived 3 episodes of psychosis
and coercive psychiatric treatment, making a full recovery, tapering,
coming off the drugs myself. I thought my Lived Experience would be of
use to the likes of Scottish Recovery Network, Penumbra, SAMH and
others. But within a few months I met with resistance and was put in my
place by people with far less life experience, qualifications, knowhow
or intellectual ability. Soon they excluded me from events, resorted to
bullying and intimidation. And that became the pattern over the years
because I wouldn't fall into line behind stupid people. I have to be
honest. I would never have survived, recovered from psychiatric abuse
if I was a follower rather than a leader. I don't believe in mental
illness and think it's a psychiatric construct to justify failures in
the system to heal patients.
I've
recounted something of my story (I'm now 66yrs young) in this Email to
demonstrate my breadth and depth of life experience,
digital/computer/online abilities. I update my website using HTML,
having learnt it by cut and pasting, after my son set up Chrys Muirhead
Associates in January 2008, to my design. I don't update it much at
present, do more blogging although even that is sparse as I'm
concentrating on keeping fit, swimming most days in Dundee which
involves two buses there and back from where I live in Springfield. We
have no car now, hope soon to move to Dundee, where it will be easier to
have a life on a low income. There is no money to be made in
whistleblowing about human rights abuses in NHS settings in Scotland.
No justice for the psychiatrically abused. We are on our own, fighting
the system.
Regards, Chrys"
copying in my MSP, MP and CabSec Health
Chrys Muirhead
writer, storyteller, swimmer, cyclist, photographer, gardener, traveller
writer, storyteller, swimmer, cyclist, photographer, gardener, traveller
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