Ellingham Hospital

Spent a month here majority of the staff were amazing very understanding, I liked the peacocks they were pretty sick, just need a smoking shelter not so far away. But yeah banging food, nice rooms-if I ever have another breakdown 10/10 will try and get em to send me back here
Mar 17th, 2021

Jerome is extremely unprofessional and treats vulnerable patients terribly, I asked him when I will I be out and he said repeat after me in a condescending tone and made me repeat everything he said with that horrible condescending voice he did. The very short woman working there wasnt much better she would purposely forget if you asked for food or help with something she did it a lot , when I was inlock down in when I was there she took 12 hours to get me a vape and her excuse was she was busy with one patient for 12 hours I was asked by a staff member if I wanted to report them ( I didnt even complain yet they just knew it was wrong ) I didnt report them at the time because I was too sick and just wanted to get better but I was treated horrible by them . The very short woman with the long hair even bragged about being able to go home after they arent good people to be around when your sick , everyone else there was very professional and kind
Apr 17th, 2023

intense psychological abuse, sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant, but always terrifying Redwood = my first psych ward (following a traumatising experience in a police cell), at the height of paranoid psychosis i'd no control over, highly vulnerable to suggestion, believing a global conspiracy was targetting me + intended to harm me greatly. First thing when i walked in was being given something to sign with no explanation, attached to something i'd written. i got hostility from every angle, staff members toyed with my emotions + fuelled my paranoia. soon after arrival, male nurse gave intense stare "you're lucky to have a bed" i told him didnt want the medication (been told nothing about it) he said in a low, chilling yet mocking voice: "you know, you don't have the right to refuse. if you do then i can hold you down + force it into you". had no idea about the mental health act charge nurse constantly made me feel unwelcome + hated, surrounding me with support to confiscate my phone in a way that felt like an ambush and no explanation, running in w/ others to stop me when i did anything as if i was a troublemaker (like putting a palm cross in cardboard clouds in rec room) i was nonviolent + had not mistreated anyone, ESPECIALLY noyjust showed passive resistance to what i saw as being a facility of oppression. when i'd try to change the radio from station they had on every day (Smooth) to Classical just for something different (patients didnt complain) she'd rush in and change it back, look at me spitefully and say "that's for the Patients!" (as if i wasn't one). she did the same thing when i turned off the TV when nobody was even in the room (so that patients weren't lulled into depression, separation and indifference), "that's for the patients!" female nurse was very sutble, when i started doing exercises and told her she laughed + said "you really think exercise is going to help you?!" female support worker was overtly hostile to me. i had a moment of intense anxiety, surrounded and looking around the room anxiously, from behind the door she'd grin widely at me so when i noticed i'd look at her face + it would instantly drop to a blank death stare, then when i looked away she'd grin again til i looked back at her + saw the death stare, back and forth, grin/death stare/grin. i was getting a moment of respite, alone reading The Selfish Gene, she dropped into a chair a couple feet in front of me + asked (with death stare) "what's that book about then?" (she never took an interest in me or how/what i was doing) as a difficult question, it set my literal mind into overdrive as i tried to summarise the nature + wider implications of the book (especially since they related to my paranoid beliefs) tto her of all people. in anxiety i looked around the room away from her. then she did it again right in front of my face. grin/death stare/grin. i couldn't look her in the face for more than a moment with that death stare, nor ask her why she was doing it or point it out to anyone else, i was too afraid of making things worse. paralyzed. she did this many times. she toyed with me with impunity. male support worker was the worst. while talking to others he'd look directly at me with disgust on key words like "roasting" or "painful". i dont have room to go into the depths of all this man did to me, or what multiple others + the whole setting did (including a woman i'm pretty sure was a chairperson, was horrible to me as soon as i met her) suffice it to say that this place truly is a facility of oppression + i became convinced i would soon be tortured. i saw other patients getting bullied. all of us victims knew what was happening, but none of us could do anything. we were all terrified. i only have room to give a few examples of a constant state. food was good. rooms were comfortable. but as male nurse told me multiple times "this is not a five-star hotel". i just needed to be cared for, instead i was traumatised for life, i might never get over the damage they did
May 2nd, 2022

I had the most horrible time at this hospital for six weeks in 2020. I was kept there against my will. I wanted to be transferred to the country I lived because I knew the hospital was unnecessarily cashing in a lot of money out of my long stay. Imagine 5 000 per week. I was in England and Northern Ireland was going to pay the hospital bill. And the truth was that I didn't need to be put in a psychiatric hospital for what I had gone through. This hospital, besides being expensive, for me, wasn't a place which could make you get well soon because of the attitude of some staff members. I don't know what was their problem with banging doors. They banged them in a very horribly deafening way such that some minutes afterwards your ears would be still going through awkward ringing sounds. I thought my ears were going to be permanently affected. The banging was worse at night. That was so unbelievable to me because in all honesty, where is the care when hospital staff disturb patients to go to sleep in such a manner? So many times I asked myself who was mentally unwell there - us they called patients or them the staff? Why would normal people bang doors that way in a hospital? I believe that was systematically and purposely done so that when the patients complain, that was attributed to their mental illness getting worse. The one star I have put is for the staff members who were so professional and caring. Otherwise staying at this hospital was one of the very bad experiences in my life.
Oct 7th, 2021

My close friend had a traumatic experience in the adult ward. The stories he told me suggest that multiple staff members attempted to deliberately worsen his condition. Things like grinning when he's looking away then frowning as soon as he looks at their face, switching every time he looks away and then back. Or looking at him with a death stare only when certain words that suggest immense pain / torture come up. Or a nurse telling him upon arrival that he is lucky to have a bed, then later telling him while alone in graphic detail and with frightening tone and expression how he did not have the right to refuse medication and he could hold him down and forcefully inject him, despite him having never been made aware of his rights under section. From the sounds of it, this place is employing some very cruel individuals. I'd strongly recommend keeping your kin away from that ward if they have a paranoid condition, my friend is still suffering from his experience there years later.
Jul 3rd, 2021