Latrobe Valley Community Mental Health Services in Traralgon

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  Lola Sun

  :: 01 March 2018 13:20:00

  I am feeling out of depth with severe anxiety and depression and I am at times feeling increasingly suicidal and very out of control, this is far beyond "my normal" and its frightening to say the least. I loathe to share this publicly. There's still so much stigma associated with mental illness/disorders and that makes it embarrassing. I presented to the LRH emergency dept on Friday(23/2) and after 4 hours of waiting in a really pityful state I left informing staff first and they let me go, knowing I was having thoughts of suicide, feeling absolutely hopeless. In that mindset i intended to end my life..the train was stopped and i was arrested under mental health act law. Still the help offered when I was finally seen by someone (obviously I was extremely distressed at this point) was lacklustre and when the community mental health team member came out over the weekend he had no clue as to what follow up the initial assessment had suggested, which was in fact an assessment and mental health and medication review by a Psychiatrist. I had to tell him! On his return to the office I assume he read the notes and called me with an appointment to see a Psychiatrist. I was hoping for a few cbt sessions and some short term medication to sort the really bad patch i am going through at the moment, so i can go back to feeling more stable and continue on with my relatively normal life. On Monday (26/2) I was seen by Dr Lane, a Psychiatrist and she had me judged from the minute i walked in. She was condescending, judgemental and rude. She treated me like a piece of garbage,discounted my feelings and what was best for me and wrongly labelled me. When i left i felt worse and really did act like a crazy person in my behavioural response to their collective lack of care. I have been avoiding calling this service, as I am aware this service is often unhelpful, but I was and still am desperate and in a lot of emotional pain, and generally not coping with anything at all. But I I will never throw myself at the mercy of these wolves again! This service made me feel more unstable, through their lack of care and high levels of judgement. Unprofessional is not the word! It really comes down to good experienced staff, ethics, basic human empathy and simply duty of care; and I found none of this within this service. I can see that the rumors of at least weekly suicides happening(I personally know of 2 in the last year)whilst people are supposed to be cared for and safe in the hands and supposed care of this service. Especially inpatients and those presenting to the emergency dept.These people are the most vulnerable! Wake up Latrobe Valley mental health service. You are feeding stigmatisation but the worst part is that it is a tragic fact that people are dying whilst in your care and they shouldn't be!

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  Luke Goodin

  :: 30 June 2017 15:20:05

  Good service