Places of Isolation

Somedays its hard for me to believe that the best and most innovative way we have come up with to address the most serious mental health crises in many places in America is to isolate people from communities in hospitals.  I have voluntarily gone to a hospital to access medication and get it together, but the truth is if a person has a safe environment, like a house, hotel, or respite available- why can't the hospital come to the person. 

Segregating people in hospitals away from thier families sets us up for failure at times.  During 2011, I was released with a discharge plan that I created.  When I went home to the community, the plan didn't work and I went right back to another hospital.  I was so upset, I called the police on myself (a point that I had not remembered until my husband and I started talking about the 60 minutes Gus Deeds Family tragedy). 

On the one hand I understand that hospitals are needed to keep people safe at times and on the other hand I don't understand why hospitals are so heavily used for so many situations in our country.  If you hospitalize an adult, like myself, in the US against thier will- usually this is a very painful experience.  Don't get me wrong, some people love the hospital.  Others of us hate to see our civil rights taken away to get access to medication.  I guess I need to tell part of my story to get to the point.

Its 2011, I am in the hospital, voluntarily.  I thought that my coworkers were trying to poison me with nuclear waste and I had escaped.  I was terrified and so I welcomed the opportunity to get help.  In fact I drove straight to the ER at Children's Hospital in Decatur. My son, they assured me, didn't have radiation damage and they were so kind as to even demonstrate this.  They had him peel stickers from a paper and told me that this skill indicated that he didn't have any nerve damage.  The hospital discharged my son to my husband.  We didn't live nearby, so my husband drove 4 hours away to be with my family.  He would drive for 4 hours to visit me in the weeks following. 

In the isolation of the hospital, I always insist on independent planning of my care.  So, my discharge plan was written by me alone.  I named the doctor I would see, the place I would go, and that I would move to Atlanta.  Well, all this didn't work in real life at discharge.  In fact, the hospital discharged me to a friend's care.  Something that was shocking to my family to find out, as they thought the hospital would just hold me till my family arrived.

But the fact that my discharge plan didn't include a stable place to live caused my plan to fail and I landed right back in the hospital.  I finally ended up 4 hours away from all the resources named in my discharge plan with my husband and family.  After another hospitalization, I just gave up on the whole healing process among my closest friends idea and went home to Nebraska.  At least there I had a therapist, a home, and a job.  What a waste of time, resource, and money came from the near month I spend in isolation in the hospitals.

What if:
The Hospital wrote a discharge plan and that that wasn't the end of thier responsibility.

What if:
The Hospital wrote a discharge plan that included input from people you can trust, like close family allies.  What if connections were encouraged.  Then the independent types, like myself, might be  motivated to add another person's perspective to understanding if the discharge plan will fit.

What if:
There were a nurse that can prescribe and peer specialist to follow up on the fit of the discharge plan at 6 hours, 12 hours, and 24 hours after a crisis or discharge.  And then a peer could follow up with you every 3 days.
This type of home care or simple availability at a center might even replacethe necessity for a hospital in so many situations in our country with a dramatic reduction in costs.

What if:
Discharge plans incorporated notions like, you won't be able to drive on your medication until such and such time.  Then real world accomodations could be worked out.

What if:
Now this may sound unrealistic, but its in my heart.  What if the hospital was more like a spa.  What if there was a celebration of giving you access to life saving medications versus a struggle to lock you inside a building and force you to take them by taking away your civil rights indefinitely?  Wouldn't everyone feel better?