Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Mental Health Week at BMDAMH.


Next week, October 4th-10th 2009 is Mental Health Week.
The Mental Health Unit at Blue Mountains Hospital will be celebrating in a unique way by keeping five of its beds closed, cutting back on Nursing Staff rostered on for each shift and not admitting patients outside of business hours.






9 comments:

  1. Community mental health teams will be sharing in the celebrations by being forced to deliver compromised services. Lack of availability to adequate, and at times any, psychiatric medical staff and mental health beds is subjecting acutely unwell clients and their families to inappropriate, distressing, and sometimes dangerous situations. How can clients be expected to place any faith in the mental health service when it is blatantly showing such cavalier disregard for the people it purports to care for? How can staff be expected to remain silent, giving tacit approval to the forced degradation of their professional standing?

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  2. People with a mental illness are at times among the most vunerable in the community so I am sympathetic to mental health staffing needs of community and hospital and yes let's hope the new doctors arrive before Santa's sleigh. However, in the abscence of enough psychiatrists, surely you are not suggesting that the hospital should keep operating all mental health beds in the Blue Mts Unit?

    If five of the 15(?) mental health beds are currently closed, due to the doctor shortage, and enough nursing staff are still rostered to cover the full fifteen beds then why can't some of the ward nurses help out in the community mental health service, until the ward is back at full strength?

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  3. Dear Anonymous,
    Hi again! Just so you know, we can actually see your IP address.
    How can nurses "help out in the community" when there are no psychiatrists? Can nurses prescribe medication? Can nurses admit patients to other hositals? How exactly is this going to "help". Throwing more nurses into the Community with no doctors to help patients with acute mental illnesses is like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic as its sinking. The Nurses are more than happy to go into the Community, but there is nothing they can do for acutely mentally ill patients when there is no doctor.

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  4. The blogger would be well advised to "work in the hospital" and spend less time peddling propaganda.

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  5. Make your mind up. Should they work in the hospital or go into the community?

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  6. I thought I would share a more rounded definition of the word 'business'.

    business |ˈbiznis| ( bus.)
    noun
    1 a person's regular occupation, profession, or trade : she had to do a lot of smiling in her business | are you here on business ?
    • an activity that someone is engaged in : what is your business here?
    • a person's concern : this is none of your business | the neighbors make it their business to know all about you.
    • work that has to be done or matters that have to be attended to : government business | let's get down to business.
    2 the practice of making one's living by engaging in commerce : the world of business | whom do you do business with in Manila? | [as adj. ] the business community | [with adj. ] the jewelry business.
    • trade considered in terms of its volume or profitability : how's business?
    • a commercial house or firm : a catering business.
    3 [in sing. ] informal an affair or series of events, typically a scandalous or discreditable one : they must be told about this blackmailing business.
    • informal a group of related or previously mentioned things : use carrots, cauliflower, and broccoli, and serve the whole business hot.
    4 Theater actions other than dialogue performed by actors : a piece of business.
    5 informal a scolding; harsh verbal criticism : the supervisor really gave him the business.
    PHRASES
    business as usual an unchanging state of affairs despite difficulties or disturbances : apart from being under new management, it's business as usual in the department.
    have no business have no right to do something or be somewhere : he had no business tampering with social services.
    in business operating, esp. in commerce : they will have to import from overseas to remain in business. • informal able to begin operations : if you'll contact the right people, I think we'll be in business.
    in the business of engaged in or prepared to engage in : I am not in the business of making accusations.
    like nobody's business informal to an extraordinarily high degree or standard : these weeds spread like nobody's business.
    mean business be in earnest.
    mind one's own business refrain from meddling in other people's affairs : he was yelling at her to get out and mind her own business.
    send someone about his/her business dated tell someone to go away.
    ORIGIN Old English bisignis (see busy , -ness ). The sense in Old English was [anxiety] ; the sense [the state of being busy] was used from Middle English down to the 18th cent., but is now differentiated as busyness. The sense [an appointed task] dates from late Middle English , and from it all the other current senses have developed.

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  7. I've made up my my. They should 'work in the hospital' with the operative word being WORK.

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  8. ^ Yeah, 'coz only sad lonely losers with nothing better to do spend their time on the internet commenting on blogs.

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To encourage other staff to speak out, you have the option of selecting "Anonymous" when commenting. The blogger works in the hospital and knows if comments are true or not. False comments will be removed.