Completely *********, Please stay away from this place.

To start off, every negative thing you've heard about this hospital are 100% true.

I was admitted to the hospital as a voluntary patient for testing as recommended by my psychiatrist (I was not admitted for treatment for depression, suicidal thoughts etc.)

Due to the Covid 19 pandemic I was sent to Camphor ward first as it was the designated quarantine ward. I will say Camphor ward is run excellently by the ward manager Sr. Shamee. The ward is clean, the nurses are wonderful and compassionate and genuinely seem to care about their patients. They would often come into my room just to see if my roommate and I were okay to ask if we needed anything. If this review was based off Camphor alone i would have given it a 5 star rating.

However, once you leave the quarantine ward and enter Acacia ward things drastically go downhill. I was taken to my room (where my light did not work) and told "just wait here someone will come show you around" I waited for around 45 minutes and nobody had come yet. (Bear in mind I had no idea what the ward rules were at this point because in Camphor I was not allowed to leave my room except to go to the smoking area, I was unsure if this was the case in Acacia as well.) After about an hour I went to go and find a nurse to ask her to show me around, she extremely reluctantly agreed to show me around.

She then shows me a whiteboard with the list of treatment sessions that go on in the hospital, I tell her that I was told that due to Covid 19 these sessions were no longer compulsory, she disagreed and said they were indeed compulsory, when I told her that I had already checked with the nurses in Camphor she rep**** "Oh, we'll see" in a very threatening tone.

I went to see the toilet facilities in my room after this and they were absolutely fifthly and disgusting, the shower floor was disgraceful (I was told this was "just the enamel") the underside of the toilet seat was literally dark brown and black with dirt, there were pubic hairs everywhere. It was a complete shambles. I have photographic evidence of this.

Every meal you are served is ice cold. The nurses do not care about this fact either. I believe one nurses answer to a complaint about the food being ice cold was simply "Okay" before walking away.

However this is where my largest complaint and a major traumatic experience begins,

On Sunday, 21 February 2021 at around 15:00 I felt as though I could no longer deal with these conditions and went to the wards reception to ask a nurse to call my psychiatrist to have me discharged. I was then taken into another room and told No, they will not be phoning my psychiatrist and I will not be discharged, when I asked why I was told because it is a Sunday and he would have to come to the hospital to sign me out as he was not the psychiatrist on call. This is also incorrect as he can sign me out over the phone and quite frankly it being a Sunday does not make an inch of a difference. I continued to insist that I at least have a phone call with my psychiatrist which I was continually denied.

The hospitals code of conduct states:

Discharge from Hospital. As a voluntary patient, you have the right to request to leave the hospital before the planned discharge date. Your doctor will either discharge you or give you instructions that you sign yourself out as refusing to receive hospital treatment as guided by the mental health act.

I spoke to the Unit Manager Sr Irene, who said she would follow up with me by 09:00 today (24/02/2021). She never did. When I called the hospital and asked to speak to her I was told that she had a half day and went home and i'd be transferred to the shift manager. This happens to be the lady who refused my phone call. I asked her why I was told no when I asked to call my psychiatrist to discharge me (which again is my right as a voluntary patient). She proceeded to tell me that she never told me no and that she said she would call the on call psychiatrist, which is ******* because he cannot sign me out as he is not my treating psychiatrist and even so, to my knowledge no call to the on call psychiatrist was made. Everything I was told IS A BLATANT LIE. I was told no multiple times. I had my father call the hospital and he was also told no. If I wasn't told no why was I taken into another room to be spoken to?

Please bear in mind I was well within my rights to leave as I was a voluntary patient there for tests and not for treatment.

The staff here are dishonest, uninterested and not at all compassionate to those who need it most. There is a general feeling amongst patients that there is no hope in that building. It is a horrible horrible place to be and I would not wish it on my worst enemy. The staff do not have a shred of understanding and compassion for what their patients are going through.

I urge whoever is thinking of signing themselves in or sending a loved one here please please please consider other options. You will leave this place feeling 100% worse than when you came in.

This hospital needs to remember that their patients are people and not lunatics that they can treat however they wish.