‘The unit seemed like a prison’: How my daughter was broken by a health service designed to support her
The understanding occurred to me with sharp clarity that the care unit housing my child echoed a locked ward.
Ruth had been deeply trusting. So had we. That the situation transformed the day she was moved from our nearby medical center to the specialized facility at the private facility in the county.
When we left, she walked calmly down to the medical vehicle with me and the child therapist – who embraced her warmly and waved goodbye.
As the transport vehicle portal accessed at our new facility, the foreboding structure rose before us. We were received and led up a set of stairs through secured portals, with each door locking behind us as the attendant waited for all doors to close before proceeding.
We entered a completely sealed space that was without natural illumination, with my eyes rapidly fatiguing from the bright clinical illumination. They directed us to a monitoring area that was surrounded by windows – what staff called the “observation room”.
The Painful Separation
Ruth’s hand slipped into mine, head down as they told me it was time for me to go. “But I hadn’t helped her unpack into her room or greeted the team yet,” was met with: “Parents aren’t allowed on the ward.”
I asked a second time, and they relented I could see her room, just once, but then I had to leave without delay. It was facility rules.
Even now, I awake suddenly in the early hours with my heart pounding as I revisit walking through the communal zone to Ruth’s assigned room. The basic amenities included a solitary bed and plastic table, with windows that were sealed.
The voices became distant as they explained there would be a changing attendant every hour through the day and night who would “monitor our daughter”. I placed her bag on the floor. Ruth sat, fearful, on the bed and then I was escorted out.
In an instant, I was sealed away from the double-locked doors, grasping a paper that limited my visitation with my daughter to just one hour, twice weekly.
What did I enable to occur?
A Life Cut Short
{Our daughter, Ruth Szymankiewicz, passed away on Valentine’s Day 2022 at 18.29 on the pediatric critical care ward at the hospital in the city. She was rushed there from the mental health facility, an NHS commissioned but for-profit youth psychiatric facility, where she had been allowed to harm herself lethally two days earlier.|Our beloved daughter died on February 14, 2022 at 18:29 in the {pediatric intensive care unit|
