‘The facility seemed like a correctional facility’: The way my child was crushed by a healthcare system meant to support her
The realization hit me with sharp clarity that the treatment center caring for my young daughter echoed a penal facility.
Our Ruth had relied completely in the system. We had done the same. That confidence broke when she was moved from our local medical facility to the psychiatric intensive care unit at the mental health institution.
When we departed, she walked peacefully down to the medical vehicle with me and the child therapist – who hugged her tight and waved goodbye.
The moment the transport entrance gave access at the destination facility, the austere structure loomed large. We were met by staff who guided us up stairs through multiple secured entries, with each door closing firmly behind us as the attendant waited for secure engagement before accessing the following.
This was a secured facility, devoid of natural light, my eyes aching already from the harsh glare overhead. We were led to an interior space, with multiple panes. The observation area, they called it.
The Devastating Separation
Her child’s grasp held my fingers as they informed me that I had to leave. When I questioned that I hadn’t helped her settle, they responded that “family members are forbidden on the ward.”
After asking again, they allowed me a momentary visit to her room, but required I leave right away afterward, citing hospital regulations.
Even now, I wake up in the night with my heart beating rapidly as I revisit walking through the communal zone to Ruth’s assigned room. The sparse furnishings included a solitary bed and plastic table, with windows that were sealed.
Their voices grew distant as they explained how a changing caregivers would monitor Ruth constantly. I placed her bag on the ground. Ruth remained sitting on the bed, clearly terrified, before I was led away.
In an instant, I was confined outside the air-locked entrances, clutching a document that restricted my access with my daughter to mere sixty minutes, two times per week.
What have I let them do?
A Life Cut Short
{Our daughter, our child, died on 14 February 2022 at 18.29 on the pediatric critical care ward at John Radcliffe hospital in the location. She was transferred urgently from Huntercombe hospital, an government-contracted but for-profit children’s mental health center, where she had been not prevented from fatal self-injury previously.|Our child passed away on the 14th of February, 2022 at 6:29 PM in the {pediatric intensive care unit|
