i wonder if president obama's plan for centralized heath care will improve psyciatric care or make it worse?

i am not ashamed to admit that i've been to uconn's psych ward several times. my first visit was during the summer of '05 and my last visit was this past april. in total i think i've been there 8 or 9 times. the reason i kept ending up there was for detox or because i overdosed in an attempt to commit suicide. the closest i came to actually dying was when i swallowed 300 milligrams of valium. instead of dying i slept for 4 days and was hooked up to machines on the intensive care unit.

since my adimmissions were associated with drugs the treatment team would always recomend a long term substance abuse treatment program. i always regected that recomendation because i've been to so many treatment centers it's ridiculous. i'm a stubburn person and i completely regect the 12 step program for recovery. i know why i abused substances. i was self medicating my depression.

uconn is a state run hospital that is always operating in massive debt. the debt comes from 3 departments in the hospital.

the delivery room, the neo-natal unit , and the psyciatric units. [ they have 2 units one for geriatrics and one for general  psych.]

a typical stay on the psych unit is 3 to 15 days. they can commit you for longer periods of time but it is very rare for a person to be there for long periods of time. if you need that much confinement they will send you to cedarcrest hospital or ct.valley hospital.

during a stay at uconn you are in a "fish bowl", it seems that way due to how the facility is laid out. every day, during the work week, you meat with your treatment team. this consists of a resident psyciatrist, an attending psyciatrist, a social worker and usually a medical student. they bring you into a conference room and discuss your situation and what type of after care you might need. the rest of the day consists of optional group therapy, vital signs, medication dispensing, and meals.

granted i never had a positive attitude when i was that hospital but they don't do much to help someone who needs help. it was explained to me by a nurse that uconn is just an acute care facility and their goal is to stablize you and set up after care. aftercare is one of the good services you get at uconn because you can see a psyciatrist for as long as you need to free of charge.

when i was discharged in april i was told by my doctor that unless i was willing to go to treatment for substance abuse that he would not see me on an outpatient basis. he told me that the state of connecticut would not allow me to be seen since i regected the recomendation of the treatment team. so currently i have no psyciatrist to meet with and no antidepressent medication to take and yet i manage to stay away from overdosing and drinking/drugging.

based on what i was told by my doctor concerning aftercare as an outpatient i was suprised  because at the end of the fiscal year on june 30th i received a phone call from uconn's outpatient department asking me if i would be interested in working with a new doctor! i said absolutely because my depression has not gone away it's getting worse and i need help now more than ever due to circumstances beyond my control. my situation is kind of a catch 22 because i have this condition in my back that is very painfull and debilitating so i need to be on oxycodone to blunt the pain until my neorosurgen figures out what to due with me.being on an opiate kind of contradicts what my treatment team recomended for me. so i hope that a universal health care system would improve the quality and the quantity of a psyciatric hospitalization instead of what is offered at the current time.

Tags: John Dempsy Hospital - Friend Or Foe

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