#NationalReportOnLongStay #WorldMentalHealthDay
Survey of service users across 43 state psychiatric hospitals, 24 states shows 36.25% of people had lived within the confines of these facilities for one year or more.
Survey of service users across 43 state psychiatric hospitals, 24 states shows 36.25% of people had lived within the confines of these facilities for one year or more.
Median duration of stay was 6 years; 1 in 10 had lived within these psychiatric facilities for 25 years or more, including one person who had spent all of 62 years of her life inside an institution.
Over three-quarters were living in closed wards – that is locked spaces with no time outdoors; at the time of survey 47 participants were living in solitary confinement in cells.
Profound social isolation was seen, 9 in 10 had never stepped outside these facilities or received a visitor in all the years they had spent in these institutions.
The majority did not need to be in tertiary psychiatric facilities, not requiring any acute care. About 8 in 10 require none to moderate supports to live by themselves, with families or friends in the community.
Why are these people in psychiatric hospitals? What defines trajectories into long-term institutionalisation? Tomorrow, we will summarise some themes emerging from the report.
