I was recently voluntarily entered at Arbour Hospital. The entrance was nice and the administrators seemed overly helpful and courteous. As soon as my family left and I walked upstairs I entered into my 5 day nightmare. I walked into screaming and yelling and not a nurse or person in sight to help quell the situation. I had my things taken, not told at all what to do and placed in a room with three other men. Nobody had even consulted me or told me what to do. I was given some pills at night ( that I need for sleep). That night doors were slamming, my roommates were upset and yelling and the nurse would come in every night a few times and shine a flashlight directly in my face for at least 20 seconds. After getting no sleep I awoke to two hardboiled eggs and a piece of bread for breakfast.
Nobody did any sort of formal introductions so I started talking to a gentleman who was in for depression and alcoholism. He had arrived just hours before me the day before. I was given at least 4 librium by that time and he had only received one because I had a nicer nurse. He complained (politely) and she said that his blood-pressure was fine and he didn't need anything. I watched as he tried numerous times to speak with doctors and his social worker, but nobody would see him and the nurses wouldn't lift a finger to find them. I watched this similar scenario happen to numerous other people. I started to become very concerned when I watched visually shaking and distraught people turned away from the nurses station for no reason at all. The second night that I was there I was not given my sleeping pill and was not told why. I said that it must be a mistake, but the nurses would not look into it. A man who had been there for a while pulled me into a room and told me that I needed to just have them call the doc on call and he could fix it. A nurse overheard us and locked us out of the room. When I proceeded to wait near the nurses station for the doctor (he had just walked by to see another patient) the nurses said that I had BETTER to go to bed and I wasn't going to see the doctor and handed me 50 mg of benedryl. I watched as my friend was given neuroton (sp?), which was making him very irritated. He tried seeing a doctor about it, but was always told he was busy. He was continued to be given neuroton for a whole day and was extremely upset by the end of the day. They also said that he now had hypertension, but didn't do a damn thing about it. At this time I was going to sign myself out because of the treatment of not only myself, but also the other patients around me. HOWEVER, I had signed what I thought was a 3 day treatment plan - turned out that if you wished to leave you had to remain there for 3 days and weekends didn't count. I couldn't believe this. I had watched as a man screamed to try to get out and tried to even call the cops, but couldn't get out. I was really worried at this time. My friend had finally seen his doc for all of about 4 minutes that next morning and said the doc didn't say anything. I became so concerned that I approached the doctor myself and sat down to explain that my friend was in bad shape and needed to get out of there (he had wanted to transfer to another place in Brookline). The doc didn't say much. I had to do the same thing with his social worker when i saw her because she completely ignored him. The place is filthy and I didn't shower because I felt cleaner not getting into them. This is all just the tip of the iceberg. There were however two WONDERFUL nurses who actually cared about people - Stacy and Renee. I'm just happy as holy hell to be out and have never felt more depressed and wanting to drink more in all my life. I also want to cry because of the guilt I feel about some of my friends still being in there. This place is absolutely HORRIBLE and should be reported and shut down. I will truly never be the same person after experiencing this.
Pros: I'm out
Cons: Everything
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