I was recently involuntarily held in a mental hospital where I went through prison like conditions (strip search, had to wear scrubs, was locked in a room outside certain times a day, stuff like that) and thankfully came out in one piece after 8 days of this crap. I was just wondering why we subject people to these conditions when they haven’t even committed a crime?
Adding that the scrubs part is specific to that location as not all hospitals follow that. Ours allows clothes from home if they meet certain requirements (and are thoroughly checked first). The only time scrubs would be used is if someone didn’t have enough clothes or if they came in like on a hold as you mentioned and nothing was available that was deemed safe. I know there are some places that just use the same outfits for everyone regardless. Our location also doesn’t do mandatory outside time or anything like that. Time spent in different groups, community areas, and outside are all just really encouraged. If someone is avoiding that thing then they process it with a psychiatrist as it’s usually due to something like depressive symptoms getting in the way and we want to address that.
I work with psych patients. It’s mostly to screen if they need to be in/out patient, new prescription, or whatever they need. Our hospital mostly gets people that have detention orders (judge orders them to get help at the facility) which means they can’t leave until they’ve been evaluated by a therapist and a plan to help them is setup. Sometimes it’s people that either chose to stop taking the meds for whatever reason or ran out of their prescription and can’t afford to get more and get brought in for their behavior. There’s patients that come in every 4 or 5 months because their prescriptions only last 90 days.
The scrubs allow patients to have clean clothes that we know don’t have anything they can use to hurt themselves or others. Some patients haven’t slept, eaten, showered in days. Giving them a shower, clean clothes, and food helps a lot.
I had a patient that while anxious and going through somethings, was talking to me, venting, occasional jokes, etc. Calm and polite the whole time. Out of nowhere, they ran towards another patients room, but only got half a meter in. They squared up like they were going to fight me, but immediately went back into their room after I asked them to. Once in the room they starting kicking the bed trying to break off a piece of rail.
By that time security, RN, and 2 other staff members were there to witness the patient wrap a blanket around their neck and try to choke themselves. All this within about 90 seconds. From calm to actively suicidal. I got yelled at for allowing the patient to enter another patients room.
There are patients that scream, threaten to kill you, and are overly aggressive and then break down crying after you tell them to stop yelling.
I’m sorry OP had a horrible experience and mental health doesn’t get appropriate funding. I’d say 95% of ppl are good patients, but the rules are for the 5% that aren’t and we can’t know which ones are gonna be the 5%.