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March 2005

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A First Day - March 13

On March 3, I included the following in a list of things I've done that you might not have:

While I was in college, I worked for a year at a state mental hospital. During that time, I helped develop and conduct a survey and wrote a report on it, which wound up being a major part of a report to the state on the different treatment options available at the time.

I knew when I posted the entry that I would eventually write more about that job. Tonight, I want to tell you about the first day I was there. And the reason it's on my mind is Patrick's entry about being a patient in a different hospital. If you haven't read it, please take time to do so.

John Umstead Hospital, where I worked while I was in college, is twenty-seven miles from my apartment. I drove it often enough that I know the distance. It is one of the hospitals the State of North Carolina maintains for the treatment of the mentally ill. The hospital is in Butner, a small town which also houses a federal prison and a state institution for those with varying degrees of developmental disability. Umstead was started after World War II, and its buildings were originally Quonset huts used when the military had a training camp in town. This means it has long hallways, which sometimes seem endless. It is a struggle to find cheer there, although nice paint and comfortable furniture go a long way toward that end.

The first day I worked there was not the first time I had ever been to the hospital; I had gone there to interview a psychologist during my first psychology class. But it was the first time I was to meet some of the patients with whom I would be working as part of the specific project with which I was involved. It was arranged that I meet with another of the project workers, to become acquainted with the way the hospital was run and be introduced to the staff and patients.

I was to meet the worker (I'm sorry, I don't remember which person it was, except that it wasn't my direct supervisor) in the area of the hospital where acute patients are first seen, mainly because it's the easiest place to get into if you don't have a key. I got there, and the worker was paged. I was told that he was involved in a patient situation and would need a few more minutes, so I settled in to wait. I was in a lobby area section reserved for staff, and could see down hallways to treatment rooms.

Then something I won't forget happened. A staff member parked a gurney in front of me and said she'd be back soon, then went to deal with some paperwork. On the gurney was a young woman, probably in her mid-twenties. She was in restraints. Leather ones, with big metal buckles. One for each arm, at her wrists, and one for each leg, at her ankles.

I tried not to stare at her, which was not easy based on the position of the gurney and my need to keep an eye out for the man with whom I was to meet. But she made it harder. She started talking to me, asking me to please get her out of the restraints because they were hurting. I told her that I couldn't do it, since I didn't yet really work there and could get both of us in trouble. She begged. I held my ground, making sympathetic noises of how I was sure someone would release her "soon," and frankly taking a close enough look to make sure her hands and feet were not bound so tightly as to interfere with blood flow (They weren't, or I would have called for help).

She told me she knew she needed to be in the hospital, but was really not sure why they thought she needed restraint. She told me she had tried to be good. She mentioned her family and how they knew she needed help. And she asked me, over and over, to please let her out of the restraints. I told her I could not do it, over and over. Each time, she seemed to understand. But that didn't keep her from asking again.

The staff member who had parked the gurney came back from dealing with the paperwork and took the patient away. My wait for the person with whom I was to meet soon came to its end, also, and we left that area to go to the ward where I was to work. The rest of my time at the hospital that day was taken up with meetings and greetings, and was mercifully uneventful.

When I had made the appointment, my direct supervisor had asked me to call him when I got back home, to let him know how the afternoon had gone. I got back to my apartment and called, and gave him the perfunctories about the meeting. Then he asked me what my impressions of the hospital itself were. And I told him about the woman in restraints. My supervisor had known me for several years by that point, well enough to understand that I knew the restraints were not in any way inhumane to the woman, but that I also had experienced something profoundly disturbing and needed to talk it out.

My supervisor let me do so, then told me not to be surprised at my own level of upset, that it was common among those who worked in the hospital to be upset the first day. He then told me something I had begun to suspect: the reason he had asked me to call as soon as I got home was that he knew from listening to all those other first-day people that I would have a story to tell and a need to tell it. He is a very wise man.

Text � copyright 2000-2005 Becky