Of the Lunatic Asylum System in England.

THE lunatic asylum system in England, or the Mental Health Hospital system in England, is in my experience, which is not limited, a very broken one. I see it in essence as a prison sentence without a conviction for the most vulnerable people in society. True it is that some need shelter due to homelessness and severe psychiatric problems, but the restriction on freedoms takes such a toll on the psyche that I believe they can cause far more problems than ever they solve. I spent three months in lunatic asylums this year in the height of summer; four times I attempted escape, and indeed managed to break the electric locks twice by barging the doors with gusto, to flee with a shattered body for some three hundred yards on the one outing I had in Dartford in baking heat, and once to set off the smoke alarms. Several times I was restrained and injected, and I have to say that I was in essence assaulted by entirely foreign people, that is, foreign to England. Once I had the boot of a Chinaman on my face.

   It would be false of me to say that these were altogether bad people, they did what was right by them as Jack Sparrow said, they followed their own lights as Churchill said, but many of them seemed frankly indifferent, often they were disgracefully rude, and they spoke Nigerian for much of the time, and communication in English was not easy. I had my telephone taken from me for about three weeks in Littlebrook Hospital, so that I had not even music for comfort. The food was not very good although it was nourishing, but the beds were the worst aspect for me. The linen was all fire proof tissue-like substance, the mattress was an odious puffy blue medical mattress, and the blankets were thin and coarse.

   The discharge system was long and arduous, and I was sectioned essentially for emotional turmoil rather than actual dangerous behaviour. Once sectioned I was condemned for a month, a month in which I deteriorated exceptionally in my emotions due to the heat and, in Littlebrook Hospital, the total absence of any grass or fresh air save for a miniscule courtyard enclosed by four high walls. My behaviour was not exemplary but I cannot see how anyone’s could be in the circumstances, I was sectioned again after the first’s expired for another six months. I managed, through extremely difficult and protracted negotiations, eventually to be discharged but in all that time I had not a single opportunity for leave beyond half an hour in the hospital grounds.

   My advice for reform to the system would be that there should be far more liberal conditions generally for people who are not criminally dangerous which, in my experience, would be nine-tenths at least of all the people interred. Telephones should almost always be allowed, leave should be granted, there should always be opportunity for fresh air and grass, instead of locking the doors half the time, and the rigour of sections should be reduced. I believe the initial section should be only two weeks and that, if the circumstances for accommodation permit, the default should be for discharge rather than renewal of a section. Also, there should be lessons in etiquette taught to the staff so that they do not show rudeness on any occasion; dignity in manners is a little thing that makes a large difference, and they are after all paid for something, not to chat endlessly and show continual disdain to society’s most vulnerable. By far the majority of people in the majority of these asylums are extremely traumatised by terrible experiences, which have shaped them into what they are, moulded by hardship. Those who are not so belong in the prison system or in the high security asylums. I was assaulted in a minor fashion three times this year, and almost punched in the face once by a certain Arab, which I avoided with surprising reflexes, and all in all I was damaged by the experience; I will not say traumatised for I know what real trauma is. The real pain was the confinement, personal discomfort, and sense of hopelessness at how sluggish the prospect of discharge seemed. Certainly, I had no notion that I was going to be sectioned at all when I pleaded with the doctors to find me some safe accommodation outside my family home; I thought, fool that I was, that there were safe houses for people in my circumstances, but of course, massive immigration and overpopulation makes the actual functioning of such a system almost impossible in a very small island. Now I have said my piece on the matter and I do not much wish to think about it ever again. There was considerable goodwill on the parts of some of the staff I encountered, but they were working against a system which is hideously bloated, nonchalant, and tedious. I will also say, in passing, that I found my experience of all but one of the doctors during my internment to show that they are quite callous and numbed to the plight of the concerned, and wish rather to protect their reputation than to improve the lives of their patients.