MO Doctor Charmaine Tang Yu Zheng

MO Doctor Charmaine Tang Yu Zheng

8/6/2012 Friday 9:25am

            I had just finished a session of consultation with my doctor - doctor Charmaine Tang. She says it’s very simple you behave well, the nurses report that you are good, Sarah (my case manager) receives feedback from the nurses that you are behaved, then we can talk about your privileges, one at a time. It is like in life too. But I said blessings can pour on people as well, not just I have to wait for one at a time, cos I said I would like my phonecalls and visitors to be reinstated as well. She argued that my parents do not want to take me back home, and it is purely dependent on my behaviour here in the ward. But I said you don’t have to depend on whether I behave well so to take me back home and not asking me to change, change, change. She argued that because I said it is because of my personality, that this is not a prison, my illness has stabilised, so it all depends on me because it’s my personality. When I wanted to show her the letters I’ve written, she sharply said I have been here for one month and she has seen me say the same things. And I should show the letters to Mavis (my therapist). She says this ‘interview’ is going to be short.

            Now, for my argument (which she always say, “Now, I’m not gonna argue with you). Firstly, the way she talks to me. She sharply says that she’s not gonna listen and the way she cuts me off and the way she says things is curt and sharp. It makes me feel there is no doctor-patient relationship. And that I feel that I am not heard, my thoughts of doing things a certain way is not heard. I felt that I’m not nicely spoken to and therefore felt disappointed and a little angry.

            Secondly, please, my discharge/me going back home doesn’t have to depend on a prim and grim good report that I behaved in the hospital, because as you said, my illness is stabilised, and as this is a hospital, you going home has to depend on whether your illness has been cured! I’ve been brought in here by my parents because I displaced their window, yes, but I don’t have the illness now! It’s my personality so therefore you should understand me and my personality! Better or not! You should understand my personality why I do such things or why I behave in such a way when I behave “badly” in your sense and that because of that I can’t go home. If I have no onset of mental illness now, you should do your job in having family conferences, arranging me to go back home, arranging transport to take me back home. Even though my parents refuse to take me back home, the doctors and the case managers should not take this as a prison to place me in here and let all decision be up to my parents, let my parents decide my stay here and not the doctors who assess me as being well. How can you change a personality, if it is to be changed, then it would not be called a personality, because this is who you are as a person.

            My prolonged stay here is battering. It’s been already two months here, TWO whole months that construction buildings can finish, roads can be built. My stay here is like taking a bat and battering me. Giving me injuries, bruises, and making me smitten, and stricken.

            Thirdly, it is NOT privileges that you are giving me. Like a candy you reward a child, No, it is necessities. Club EPIP, parole, outings, making phonecalls and having visitors is a necessity to every patient, whether good or bad. Because this is what makes a hospital! When friends visit you, you feel more comforted, you feel that you’re not alone where loneliness can be such a devastating factor staying in here. These visitors are integral to our stay getting well there! And I know I’ve been cut off phonecalls because some of my friends complained to the hospital that I called them from IMH, but it’s already been weeks. And I can just don’t call these people again! What is life when you can’t make phonecalls to your other friends and you just disappear from their life without telling them to visit you in hospital? It is my connection to the outside world and I need to make phonecalls before visitors (friends) can come and visit me! Activities like Club EPIP, parole and outings makes my stay here less like a prison. And please, yes, it is not a privilege, it is a necessity. The times where you go crazy without going out of a confined area for months, that you don’t blame me. And these things does not have to depend on my behaviour though I must say I should show a reasonable amount of stable behaviour before I go out, the behavious that the nurses record are nitty-gritty small issues of misbehaviour like if I lend a pen to a new patient. The nurse would write that I lent a pen to a new and unwell patient that could poke her eyes. I lent a pen to a new and unwell patient that could poke her eye. I lent her a pen to write letters to her mum and dad! No ill intentions! Another example will be when I ask for the pen back, the nurse would say that I’m pestering, which I am not! All for trying to get my pen back! Anyway, back to the issue, that’s why I don’t wanna base my necessities or “privileges” on my documented “behaviours” on the ward! Because I can behave very well but if small things happen, it would jeopardise my whole necessities. And most importantly if there is a documented misbehaviour, that is , FIND OUT is that really a bad behaviour. DID I REALLY DO IT? Or why did I do it instead of immediately not letting me down to outings and phonecalls/visitors which they have been doing this to me.

            Furthermore, remembering the way they forced me to withdraw from my studies, where my case manager forced me to sign the papers that if I do my mother would come and visit me, if Idon’t she won’t. Where is my voice, my say in these damning decisions? My rights? My voice? Care for you.