Welch Autistic in mental health facility room for 4 years

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ASPartOfMe
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02 Jan 2022, 10:43 am

Autistic young man has been detained behind a hatch for more than four years in a mental health hospital's old file room

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Patient A, 24, lives in a tiny room at the Cheadle Cheadle Royal Hospital in Greater Manchester, part of the Priory group.

His movements are constantly tracked by CCTV cameras, he has no physical contact with anybody and his meals are slid through a gap in the bottom of a wooden hatch.

Patient A, who also has a learning disability and Tourette’s syndrome, has been detained under the Mental Health Act since September 2017.

The space used to be an old file room at the back of the hospital.

It has a bedroom, a bathroom and a small lounge area, plus a "snug" or sensory room, where Patient A often sleeps, under the eye of a CCTV camera.

He is looked after by staff at a ratio of five to one and when his room needs cleaning he is shut in a separate area, such as an area of garden, closed off by high metal fencing.

His mum Nicola Cassidy, 49, says “people wouldn’t treat an animal” like they do her son and his care is “worse than being in prison".

Nicola, from Liverpool, is preparing to launch a legal battle in the Court of Protection to have him released from his "life in a box".

She wants a judge to review his sectioning under the Mental Health Act and provide a route to a proper home in the community.

She said: “We fully appreciate that my son has complex needs but he’s being treated terribly. He’s locked away from the world and has no physical contact with anyone. For his meals to be pushed through a tiny gap in the bottom of the hatch is awful.

“People wouldn’t treat an animal that way and I feel that his care is worse than being in prison. He has challenges but is a loving and caring person who needs stimulation and support.

Nicola wants Liverpool Clinical Commissioning Group and Liverpool City Council to help work towards providing a community placement.

Nicola says her son had a typical childhood up until around the age of 12. He was diagnosed as autistic aged seven, then later with Tourette’s and a learning disability.

It was around the age of 14 that his family started to struggle with managing the changes in his mental state and Patient A hit crisis point.

He left his family home to go into residential care aged 14 in 2012 and was moved from placement to placement.

He was admitted to Mersey Lodge ward in Cheadle Royal Hospital on September 5, 2017, where he has stayed ever since.

Kirsty Stuart, an expert public law and human rights lawyer at Irwin Mitchell representing Patient A and Nicola, said: “This is yet another case where the loved ones of people with autism and/or a learning disability are detained in units which were not designed to care for people such as Patient A.

“The first-hand account we’ve heard from Nicola about what’s happening to her son is probably the worst I’ve heard.


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CarlM
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02 Jan 2022, 10:31 pm

I don't see anything about him being welsh ("Welch" is a name that is probably a spelling variation of "welsh"). Liverpool and Manchester are both in England.

Anyway, it seems like a strange way of handling the situation with this young man.


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03 Jan 2022, 8:49 pm

The issue is that we still don't know what to do with autistics who get violent enough to be a danger to those around them. Nobody seems to have a solution.



autisticelders
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04 Jan 2022, 6:30 am

so very sad. no answers.


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League_Girl
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08 Jan 2022, 1:15 am

MrsPeel wrote:
The issue is that we still don't know what to do with autistics who get violent enough to be a danger to those around them. Nobody seems to have a solution.



I wonder why doctors don't drug them up like they do with the elderly who are violent to their caregivers because of dementia?


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09 Jan 2022, 4:06 am

I think they do.
But drugs don't necessarily make the person safe or able to live independently in society, so they get shut away somewhere.

I can't help thinking that some kind of institution or setting that was able to provide structure and activities (particularly outdoor activities that tire people and reduce aggression) might be a better way to go.
Though obviously there would need to be really good oversight to make sure people are treated with care and respect, not like some institutions in the past (or even today).



carlos55
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09 Jan 2022, 8:04 am

MrsPeel wrote:
I think they do.
But drugs don't necessarily make the person safe or able to live independently in society, so they get shut away somewhere.

I can't help thinking that some kind of institution or setting that was able to provide structure and activities (particularly outdoor activities that tire people and reduce aggression) might be a better way to go.
Though obviously there would need to be really good oversight to make sure people are treated with care and respect, not like some institutions in the past (or even today).


Sounds a good idea, although I suspect costs and laziness of decision makers prevent this.

Sadly far cheaper and easier unfortunately to drug them up and dump them in a room for years.


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