This is way more than a Vent, sorry.

This is about personal privacy and individual rights to privacy, and WDHB 's Community Mental Health Service.

But First, my sincere apologies for not being here at our place, TBBD much recently.

I’m um, very close to the end of a particular ‘tether’ and struggling to cope, sorry.

I do feel very much that I am letting the side down here – believe me, it isn’t by choice and I didn’t see the train wreck coming.

Yep, I’m still taking me meds, still not doing anything ‘silly’ but I am in a crisis of sorts and that’s not leaving shitloads of energy for anything much else, sorry.

And it was a Whanganui District Health Board Community Psychiatric Nurse who pulled the rug out from under me – and I ain’t even been a consumer of theirs for nigh on three years. Bless Her.

This ‘thing’ has been eating me for a few weeks now and today I decided I needed to do something official about it. So I did. By email to WDHB, Whanganui. In that complaint, I also said um, nah, I don’t want you’se fellas coming round and having a chat about it thanks all the same.

Who believes in coincidences? I do, now.

Guess what? About 25 minutes after sending the WDHB an email which included a request saying don’t darken my fucking doorstep, I felt the need to go for a wee walk and try 'n calm down. I step off my front porch on my crutches, take a few steps down the path and around the corner ‘they came’.

Two Community Psychiatric Nurses including the one against whom I have lodged a complaint. They wanted to see me.

Had I been physically able to, I’d have started running and I would not have stopped yet. I very nearly urinated in my pants when I saw them both and my first thought was ‘They have come to Bin Me.’ I really did think that.

Why else would two of them turn up otherwise? My experiences show there is always been more than One Person visit when ‘they’ have decided to Bin me. (Clarification - only Canterbury DHB has actually Binned Me, so far. Sunnyside, it was.)

Feeling very backed into a corner, I told them outside I was real unhappy and didn’t want to see them, but they asked if they could come inside and talk. I’m polite. I said yes. What else could I say? I couldn’t use the words that my brain was sticking on the tip of my tongue – I don’t ever talk to a woman like that, its not how I was taught.
I was polite but furious. Or furiously polite anyway. I had to sit on my hands, to try to mask the shakes.

They came today to try and dig themselves out of a ‘professional’ hole of their making.

Thing is, the hole they have dropped me into, it’s a lot deeper, a lot darker and I can’t find the ladder. And no one at WDHB Community Mental Health Team Marton even thought about that as a potential consequence of their actions did they? Nooooo, they didn't, Paddy.

Everything which I have done, or tried to do for myself in these last three years of doing it alone ‘outside the System’ now feels like an utter and complete waste of time and effort.

I am and have been reminded by them that I will always only be a person with mental illness.

I guess I should be grateful I needn't try to be anything else now in my community. I guess, I’d better practice my dribbling and bubble blowing for when I’m out and about; and forget about hoping to just live quietly on my own in as normal a manner as I can.

All I know right now is that I no longer wish to reside in the community I do – as a direct result of an WDHB community mental health nurse breaching my privacy. I don’t know what I am going to do, but I guess since I have no options I shall toughen up and get over myself, - maybe not this year, but I PaddyPromise I shall try and work on it.

What did WDHB do? One of its community mental health nurses told a person I had never met, a 'consumer' that I too have Bi Polar disorder and that he should introduce himself and be friends, ‘cos he’s isolated and has no friends.’ He knocked on my door already knowing my name and mental health ‘diagnosis – I didn’t tell him it. He knew for instance, that I am Bi Polar and didn’t have schizophrenia – he made the distinction between ‘them’ and ‘us’ who are only Bi Polar. And he named the Nurse who had told him about me and my diagnosis and to come be best buddies. That ain’t gunna happen in this Lifetime, that I promise.

But that poor bloke just did what his nurse suggested. A few weeks ago now. Yesterday, he tried to come visiting again. I told a lie to get rid of him. I do not enjoy telling lies. I feel ashamed I felt I needed to lie.

I feel embarrassed that as a 50 year old bloke I didn’t have the fucking gumption to complain the day this first happened. Shame on me that when he knocked on my door last month I was so flabbergasted I didn’t know what to do, except invite him in. Shame on me I didn’t throw him out the moment I noticed that he was sitting on my furniture in what appeared to be freshly pissed trousers. Shame I care about WDHB putting my name and address around as a free community mental health drop in centre – 'cos guess what – it ain’t. To my Shame.

Now I am feeling exceptionally guilty for having turned this man away. What if doing that severely retards this mans integration into society? What if … ???

Those what -ifs make me feel about as a low as a person can get – ya know, I do try to care about others, I really do and I rejected an unwell person at my door yesterday.

I don’t like being inhospitable to anyone. But somehow or other, I gotta give the most I have to give, to me. It’s the only way I can survive. Dear WDHB – Paddy is ONLY Paddy. Paddy is not Salvation to Your odds ‘n sods, and hey, that was an odd one.

Anyone who has bothered to read this far will probably be thinking, sheesh, he only had a visitor, what’s he upset about?

Like a lot of us, I really work hard to be as well as I can. I force myself to do things when my body doesn’t want to; I force myself to do things when my brain doesn’t want to.

Ya know what, WDHB, I think I do enough already 'in the mental health community'. That is by MY CHOICE, NOT BY WDHB IMPOSITION.

How dare you WDHB???

Paddy.

Paddy, if the complaint is not followed up to your satisfaction I would suggest you follow up the complaint with the privacy commissioner or the ombudsman.

Sorry you have to go through this mate, it not a good position to be in.

I have been in a similar position with a breech of privacy.

Dear Paddy

That is so not on! I would be so angry too..how dare they!!!! mutter mutter

You do so much already and I am so grateful to you. I so under stand the privacy thing.. (how many more times can I use the word so? I so need a bigger word vocab and to be so able to spell)

I had some people here find out that I was " mental"I was so pissed off about it that when they talked to me I would act really weird and on a high just to fuck them up and freak them out ha ha!

yes I too like people and to help but it will only be on my terms and that is that so everyone can just mind their own bussness!!! and you WDHB

Paddy - I agree with Ros; this is way out of line for somebody in the mental health profession.

Here is the link to information about complaining to the privacy commissioner. http://www.privacy.org.nz/how-to-complain/

I'm fuming just thinking about it...how dare they! That's completely ridiculous and you should definitely take it further if you feel you can. You should not have to feel guilty about turning that man away, you shouldn't have been put in that situation in the first place! If you'd been walking around marton holding up a sign that said 'hey i'm bipolar, wanna be friends?' then maybe. But otherwise absolutely bloody not. Grrr. How rude of them to turn up at your house without arranging a time with you...totally apart from the fact that they had already been told NOT to come?! Hard to think that THESE people are our trained mental health professionals, if they put such little thought into what consequences their actions may have to someone who is potentially not very stable in the first place. Fuck em. Fuck em all. Love ya Patrick xxx

Hi Pat

Like everyone else, I'm gutted by the WDHB. I strongly suggest with 'friends' support, you make a formal complaint. What concerns me Pat, is you having to face this man - shut the door again, and how you are going to cope. Your a strong soul Paddy, what they did to you would terrify anyone who have had a 3 people 'visit', me included.

Kia kaha
Mwhaa and hugggs

Poetry

You have the right to be treated with respect and dignity.

Sod the lot of them, get your tank out Paddy... we're all thinking of you

Yes, time to get the tank out. Shame on them, Paddy, for putting you into both these positions - both the privacy breach which is appalling (your home is your castle and safe haven, not a place to send unknowns to visit!) and turning up uninvited at your property as if, because you have been in the system before, anything you might say and do for ever after amen is their concern.

Give 'em hell, Paddy. And sending lots of good vibes to you, you have done nothing wrong and please don't feel bad about necessarily looking after yourself first and foremost...

Thank You All for your good wishes.

I have made an formal complaint and I am informed by letter that it will be investigated.

The WDHB letter of 18 May 2010 seems a trifle disingenious and assumed that since I told them to neither telephone me nor darken my doorstep, that I do not wish to be further involved in any investigation.

I don't see in such an assumption by WDHB any real intent or means of a reconciliation between us. WDHB and Paddy both have to exist in this town and I’d much rather exist here in a ‘reconciled’ state than not.

I've emailed the WDHB and said I am willing to consider meeting with the appropriate senior WDHB staff at an acceptable neutral venue in Marton or even possibly in Whanganui if it would help but it won’t be on premises involved in the management of people’s health. That sounds reasonable?

Most importantly, I have told WDHB that ...

"This is a very small town and it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that your mental health nurse ****** and I may pass each other in public. You may be assured that in such situations I shall not seek to cause her any embarrassment or harm. Please, make absolutely certain that ****** knows that she is safe. Thank You because that is very important."

Feck. See WDHB, if a feckn looney who is on a knife edge and trying to take care of himself can still care about and consider someone elses personal safety and 'feelings', can't You? Its not that hard.

Pack of Bastards. I want this fixed, not comittee'd up and swept away. I HAVE to be involved. I don't trust 'Them'.

And the 'Them' is now a lot more than just one person. It is an institutional mistrust. Somehow or other, I still have to live in this town. And this town needs safe mental health professionals working in and for it. Arrrrrgh. Why am I feeling like I'm the Big Bad Wolf here - damnit Paddy, its NOT you to blame this time, Arrrrgh.

Shit. Now I feel Guilty cos I'm not prepared to leap into print and say 'I don't want that nurse to lose her job.' Why should I care? Why? 'Cos well, Paddy got the sack once. Its not a fun feeling. The nurse has feelings and needs and skills and I dunno, all these 'THINGS' that should not be my worry, keep pushing their way into the front of me mind. The balance of probability is that during this persons nursing career, a lot of good has been done. Mebe there is an Institutional failure to regularly reaquaint staff with simple things that should not be taken for granted. Arrrrrgh!

Are my feelings and needs and sense of dismay worth more than all that accumulated good? Arrrrrgh.

Bastards. Sorry, but nah WDHB I ain't yet impressed. And the stress - sheesh my back and neck hurts and I've had the same ole headache for days now. Choice, thanks WDHB. Just what I needed - more pain. Ta.

Paddy.

Dear Paddy

Its Martine the Registered Mental Health Nurse here, you know the one with the chronic melancholia?

You say, with all the humanity and humility within you that you feel for this person and her feelings and skills and the good she may have done in her career.

Paddy look what she has done to you. That is enough damage for one individual to cause isn't it>

You count too, you know. You are a human being entitled to live free from harrassment and discrimination and stigma.

And here, a Mental Health Nurse just put paid to that. How many others have been pushed back into their corners by this woman's cavalier high-handedness?

She needs some supervision mate, and perceptorship at least.

Otherwise she's a loose cannon Paddy.

Paddy

I am appaulled at this. How unproffessional and unethical on the nurse's part.

Maritine is right, who else has she done this to.

I ask you, what would you suggest if I were the one typing out the story and it happened to me? What would you tell me to do, how would you tell me - and what advise would you give me?

I am picking you would be angry and say the person was grossly unfair. I am picking you would say don't feel guilty and I am picking you might feel offended on my behalf.

That is exactly how I feel - so while you might feel sorry for the nurse and not wish them a job loss, they also need to be held responsible, and they need to be accountable.

It is not like they are a check out chick at MacDonalds and gave you the wrong fries size. This person has screwed with two people who have their own 'problems', which have now been amplified.

I don't know what I would do in the same situation, but by god it would rille me to an undesirable point.

Look after yourself, you didn't deserve that.

wow I want MYLIFE and MARTINE on my team..... wish I could express myself that well!!!!

thanks smiley

Hope you are doing better Paddy!
And good on you for making a formal complaint, what they did was WAY out of line and they definately need to be pulled up for it. As for worrying about the nurse? Forget it mate, she has to take responsibilty for her actions and you, I dont want to speak for everyone but I reckon most of us feel that you just need to look out for you over this - you have done nothing wrong here. You aren't the Salvation Army or home to the local drop in centre - you are another dude in the community like everyone else who ought to have his privacy respected, not have your personal details given out to anyone!
Kia Kaha Paddy

Thank You and God Bless each and every one of you for your support because I didn't have the strength and faith to trust myself on this.

I kinda 'knew' 'it' was very wrong but being me, I placed what I perceived to be the needs of others, before mine.

I DO DESERVE BETTER FROM WDHB. I really do. Crikey.

Thanks everyone, for helping me to understand that as a reality rather than as an abstract ideal which only applied to others.

I shan't back down; I DO deserve better.

I have told them today by email that I think I shall involve my Electorate M.P. in this Complaint, given that the M.P. has specific portfolio and other interests in breaches of this nature.

And that I have extended my original complaint to specifically include the actions and responsibilities of the 'second person'; the backup MH worker who arrived with here with the one against whom I had only just complained.

Paddy.

Good on ya mate,

Paddy even if they don't give you a bunch of daffs and a box of chocolates by way of apology, this woman needs to be corralled, taken in and do a few weeks work under a supervisor, or mentor of some description at the very least.

The backup goon should as a professional person exercised his decision to proceed with the "visti" or not, so you are right to include him in your complaint.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/3732709/Inappropriate-relationships-at-Whanganui-mental-health-unit

Dear God.

My heart goes out to the young lass and her family - poor souls.

Ha Martine, me medical records should show allergies to chocolate and nuts. What next? They gunna make me eat a Peanut Slab to bring me complaint to an end?

I've not had any acknowledgement of the extension of my original complaint to include the second person present. In fact, I've had nothing but an initial letter and a subsequent confirmation that they will use email to keep in touch.

Paddy.

OK drat. so the box of chocs and a bunch of daffs won't do the trick???

Darn, they might actually have to think of a way of apologising without actually having to use the word Sorry or Apologise in the process.

Always a tricky one, believe me, Pat.

You have set the cat amongst the pigeons. Good thing too its a wake up call that Mental Health Services such as it is needs.

As if they aren't in enough trouble already given the link you have just supplied, it shows the value they hold the mentally ill client in.

The best they offered was moving the poor lass to another mental health unit???? So isolate and stigmatise her still further, increase the punishment??

PPPPPFFFFFFT as you say.

Hey Paddy, so what happened after your email and complaint?