Friday, January 11, 2013
Incompetent Routine of the Ward. IMH.
The Routine of the Ward. IMH.
1/8/2012 Wednesday 11:41am
Before I write about fixing pipes and shower water pressure, I want to complain about this hospital’s routine and schedule here like an in-house jail. I want to commend on this patient-friend of mine – ySC that she sharply and frustratedly pointed out about the routine and schedule of this ward 34A or all of IMH’s ward in general.
We wake up, as early as 7am to bathe. And Everybody has to wake up. Because if you miss Bathing, you won’t get to bathe until the next day. The next morning. I dunno what kind of reason they shifted the bathing time from the afternoon to the morning. Because the noon time is the time where the sun is hottest and our body odour is the strongest. Their reason of ‘bathing to look fresh in front of the doctor’ is rather not accepted by me.
That is the reason they give, to let us bathe in the morning, when we just woke up, we have to feel the pounding hot and cold water on our backs instead of relaxing our mornings with a cuppa sweet coffee – yes, their coffee can sometimes be so bitter. What I’m trying to say is, I don’t want to wake up so so early in the morning and then Work. Work means rubbing ourselves in soap, wash this, that and wash up. We just want to wake up as and when WE LIKE, but we just have to eat medicines.
So basically, hear this out. This is our daily routine: So we basically have to wake up as early as 7am in the morning, bathe, and then move out/walk out from our sleeping area into a pantry-dayspace. Then we eat our breakfast. They always serve us kaya/butter bread and coffee with some exception, milo. It’s always bread and coffee every morning, that’s all. If we’re lucky, the doctor will see you in the morning. If you’re not lucky, for 5 hours, from 8.30am to 12pm, you Do Nothing for the whole 5 hours. Either you sit down there and watch some non-beneficial TV show or you sit down there and stare at the wall. This is what us IMH patients go through everyday! Extreme boredom! And so you say schizophrenic patients with invading thoughts and are hearing extra-terrestrial voices have to stay in this place for days with this kind of nothing-to-do environment, our thoughts will go even more haphazard and with this quietness and emptiness, extraterrestrial voices can strike even greater. If you say we’ve got mental illness, and we came here to be cured, I think we came here to get mental retardation and deterioration of mental alertness instead!
So comes 12pm, then we get our lunch. Our lunch is always almost the same old food. It’s not like the publicised Khoo Teck Puat hospital’s food. We are deprived of lobster, seafood, western food, currypuffs and KFCs. At least you would give uswestern food here. I understand this is C-Class ward, but C stands for Commodation, with an A in front. What I mean is, even though whatever class it is, food is of the utmost importance to us! Especially the kind of food. Good tasting food can lift our spirits while we are in the hospital or anywhere. I mean, we never got a mee rebus here at all! The food they provide, especially Chinese food, is not tasty at all. So you see. Maybe they should change the cook for IMH’s Chinese dishes.
After we eat our lunch, we will then move back again into our sleeping area, where we will again into our sleeping area, where we will again Do nothing on our beds from 12:30pm to 3:30pm for Three hours. Usually we sleep, to get over, to numb ourselves the pain of staring at the walls with nothing to do. Those lucky selected ones by the doctor will then go to OT – Occupational Therapy at 2:30pm. My way of getting out of the boredom rut. So comes 3:30pm, we get an awakening from our beds joltedly to move out back again to the dayspace-pantry. Usually, after a deep sleep, we dread to get out of bed. But nevertheless, we are forced to go to the pantry to eat our tea. One thing I wanna highlight is the terrible kind of biscuits they give us. It’s always the cheapo salted square biscuits from Khong Guan. I‘d like to feedback, shall we have Chicken In A Biskit biscuits and some better tasting biscuits then lemon putts, lemon puffs and more lemon puffs or squarish salted biscuits, squarish salted biscuits and more squarish salted biscuits? I’m sure when you’re outside you don’t always eat these kind of biscuits, although I must admit they do give us green bean soup sometimes, but nevertheless..
After finishing our tea, we would then sit there and do nothing again until our dinner time at 5:30pm. When I wanna do something, like asking the Sister Nurse Manager of Ward 34A Ho Soo Kim to lend me a boredom-ridder radio, she instead of trying toget me one radio, tells me that she threw away the radio. So we sit there and do nothing again until dinner comes. Dinner is always still the same like lunch, rice, rice and more rice. Either that or noodles in special days – days which I superbly look forward to.
So we gobble up our dinner and we are whisked away again, we have to move back intoour sleeping area dormitory again. And when we do this, sometimes some of us would sit and join the visitors in the visitor’s area, as we walk pass it. Because we get lousy food in the hospital we always ask the visitors for theirchips, oranges, Ruffles, cheese and chicken rice. And when we do that, we runthe risk of getting ourselves tied. So that’s the extent we go to satisfy our taste buds!
So we are ushered back into the dormitory again. And inside the dormitory, we’d do nothing again until 7pm, a 1 hour wait till they serve us our medicine. Some of us just don’t want to eat the medicine even though we do admit we’ve got mental illness. And after medicine, we lie on our beds waiting for our night time milo and then after that our lotions and lastly brushing teeth. Then, we are expected to sleep. If we ever walk around again and again, they would tie us on the bed. That’s how cruel these systems are in IMH.
And so we sleep. And the cycle continues again the next day.
So let me sum it up for you: We wake up, 7am, bathe, out, eat breakfast, doing nothing, lunch, do nothing, tea, do nothing, dinner, do nothing, medicine. Then milo, lotions and brush teeth. Then the same day repeats itself like a stray dog chasing you in a ringed-circle.
If I’m not crazy, I would turn crazy in this place. That’s why I say this is like living in a jail! What kind of hospital is this? And not to forget, while we are doing nothing, those chronic patients will SCREAM and shout all day, disrupting our mood and emotions. IMH, a place of recovery? I think it’s a place of torture. Before I forget, there’s no laptops or phones or even mp3s allowed in the ward. Loving hearts, beautiful minds? I think it’s black hearts and disturbed minds. Said. Done.
1/8/2012 Wednesday 10:44pm
- Genevieve
Ine at 11:41 AM
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10 comments:
Franceska SuiJanuary 27, 2013 at 4:57 AM
You do have activities right? Like in your other blog where you learn to sew toys.
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IneApril 16, 2013 at 3:15 AM
Franceska, no, learning to sew toys are only the 'lucky' ones SELECTED to go for OT - Occupational Therapy. Which sometimes the OT in charge Vivian Tan doesn't allow me to go for OT. So besides that, ALL of the rest of patients literally do nothing everyday.
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Robert LewandowskiApril 16, 2013 at 1:02 AM
I was admitted to IMH in 2012 and went through exactly the same as you did! Yes, it is like a jail but I think it is better in prison where you at least get to play sports or go to the gym.
This is definitely not a place recommended for recovery. I felt more like a zombie or dog at IMH than a human being!
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IneApril 16, 2013 at 3:23 AM
Hi Robert, it's amazing yr replying here! Whats yr no/email?;)
No, we don't even play sports OR go to the gym. At all! I don't even step OUT of the four walls of the "jail"!
We are in a worst position because we are mental patients, treated like CONVICTS.
It is definitely not a place for recovery. They suck big time of money from you for you to 'upgrade' to an A class ward and the long stay patients stay in the C Class wards and live in these kind of condition like us.
I do feel like we are zombies or dogs then human beings when I stayed in IMH!
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Robert LewandowskiApril 16, 2013 at 12:48 PM
I think the minister of health should pay this place a visit and find out about the conditions at IMH! Or are we the outcasts of society that the government does not care at all!
I can consider myself lucky that the staff at my Class B ward were rather nice. Even if one is not insane, he or she will be driven to insanity the longer the patient stays!
I can say that not every patient at IMH has mental illness. Some may in fact be spiritually possessed. I could tell as I had some experience in a church deliverance group. I feel really bad for them as it was not that fault and they have to be trapped in 'jail'!
I don't have skype but you can add me at MSN at new_age_lady_hunter @ hotmail.com.
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IneApril 17, 2013 at 1:49 AM
Hi Robert. Robert Lewandowski is not yr real name right? That's a footballer's name??? How did you find out about my blog btw?:) Whats yr real name, no/email? Cos I cant send, there was a delivery error cos that email doesn't exist?
About yr comment, Yes, I agree that The Minister of Health should pay this place a visit. BUT, they might just bring him to all the nice places and not the C Class wards or to the places where he sees emaciated patients being tied or poor patients being force-fed. IMH would paint him a 'beautiful' 'image/front' of IMH, and NOBODY, including the Minister would know our plight.
Consider myself miserable that the nurses at the C CLASS wards are terrible. http://imhospitalgen.blogspot.sg/2013/04/mistreat-by-nurses-in-imh-from-2012-and.html?m=1
Yes, Even if one is not insane, he or she will be driven to insanity the longer the patient stays! I stayed there for 6 months. They love to keep people like in a jail.
Which church are you in? Well, I have a mental illness because the nurses mistreated me when I had no mental illness and I was dumped in a care centre without no care and concern from parents with a insistent crazy uncle - Rudy/Rudi Tan Seng Kok, coupled with backslide from church.
You know, they don't really care if you are spiritually possessed or whatever, if you are diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar etc, YOU are mentally ill. No matter what. If you look mentally ill, or you behave mentally ill, 'you are sick'. My previous doctor Dr Sujatha Rao didn't even respect my human rights and forced me to have injections when I refused medicine.
Even whether I have mental illness, its quite debateable. Because I can get healed overtime (which is another 'debateable' issue). I really don't understand. If I go to church regularly and have a loving home, I wouldn't have a mental illness (in my opinion).
Yes, I feel really bad for them as it was not their fault and they have to be trapped in 'jail'!
Email me at gemmindown @ hotmail.com or whatsapp me at +65 83350564 now . :)
Robert LewandowskiApril 17, 2013 at 4:06 AM
Yes, that's a footballer's name! I set this google account up in a hurry and that was why!
I had thought about the idea of the Minister of Health visiting IMH and after some consideration, I have the same thoughts as you do. It will defeat the purpose anyway!
I live in the West of Singapore and I don't stick to a particular church.
You mentioned that you stayed at IMH for half a year? I would have gone nuts or killed myself had I stayed in that 'hell-hole'for more than a week!
I volunteered to help take my recovery a bigger by admitting myself into IMH and it turned out to be my biggest regret! The nurses at my Class-B ward are rather nice but the doctor was nasty! I was only released after 3 days after pleading with my parents.
I had gone through National Service at a combat unit but IMH was something I had never experienced before! It was much worse than NS! Freedom level during NS is at 50% while it's only 5% at IMH,. There was 'no life' at IMH! Patients treated like convicts is something I still can't understand!
I have OCD and even though my condition had relapsed, I dread going back to that place again! My parents even told me they would call for IMH emergency service to have people come to my house, sedate me with a needle, tied me up and forcefully whizzed me away to IMH even if I had done nothing wrong! I promised myself to resist being suppressed even if I have to resort to violence to prevent myself from being thrown into 'prison'!
People without OCD do not understand what a sufferer is going through and only blame the sufferer for not being able to control his or her 'ritualistic tasks'!
If I were really committed to helping myself, I would rather check myself in a friendly Christian environment where I am not pressurized and having people constantly reminding me that God is looking out for me all the time and will help me get better!
I did a check and my MSN account still exists. You can add me at new_age_lady_hunter@hotmail.com.
Robert LewandowskiApril 18, 2013 at 5:54 PM
Here's a wonderful song for comfort! Hope you like it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULj4QDcM9Vs
IneApril 18, 2013 at 11:30 PM
Hi there:) r u a chinese? thanks. Its a God song;)
What's yr no? Cld u email me nw at gemmindown@hotmail.com? ;) What's yr useable email that i can email u too because ive tried to email to that email u gave me but i cant. I dont use msn now. So cld u? Thanks! ~gen
Robert LewandowskiMay 11, 2013 at 8:39 PM
Sorry mate for not replying for a month as I was forcefully admitted to IMH against my own free will! My parents brought those big-sized IMH guys and auxillary police officers to subdue me at home and there was nothing for me to do about it! I was violated and stayed at IMH for 1 month! The boredom was absolutely killing me everyday and not even newspapers can be brought back into the dormitory! The loud noises made by other patients was killing me too! It was like a Nazi concentration camp! I was only discharged when the doctor decided to free up new spaces for new patients. The medical staff was total crap! They did not give a damn about patients' physical health! What matters to them is only mental health! This is how IMH operates!
How I came across to know this was that there were other patients having severe gastric pains, coughs and skin diseases and not even given a look at by the medical staff despite several complains!
These people will medicate patients to 'death' with mental and sleeping pills. There was also a spiritually possessed patient whom only calmed down when I prayed over him in Jesus' name. Every part of his limb was tied up and he speaks in demonic tones. It reminds me of scenes from the movie "Exorcism of Emily Rose"! How on earth is he going to be get out of this 'prison' is a big question mark as no pastor could get in and exorcise him as doctors will think the Christian leaders are insane! As usual, they just continue to medicate him to 'death' everyday without result! I just pray that God will help this poor guy one day!
I am now an outpatient but there is always a fear factor going back to IMH again ! I guess we're kind of on the same boat! I am 28 years old by the way. We can exchange text messages at my cellphone number, 91665771.
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