Andrzej liked to drink. Because why should he take care of himself, why take care of himself? The wife, Anna, passed away ten years ago after they lost their child. He couldn’t cope after the breakup. At the beginning he tried classic – small doses of asentra, a little exercise in the fresh air, some friends. But this solution did not work. Gradually, he started reaching for alcohol – a glass of wine in the evening. Then two lamps. Then, on the weekends, a little more. Wine was getting cheaper with time – it wasn’t about taste, smell or clarity anymore.
- 12 million Poles suffer from mental disorders, of which 4 million are children and adolescents
- Psychiatrists work under constant pressure – the problem is, among others staff shortages, insufficient number of beds for patients, lack of modern medicines and therapies
- Doctors often fall ill after a few years of work themselves – they cannot cope with the fact that they cannot help so many suffering people
He gained weight. He didn’t care for himself. The clothes became too tight for him, but he didn’t buy new ones. He went to the hospital where he worked quite conscientiously. Every day he came into contact with seriously ill people – with a high degree of disorder. He didn’t ask them about their problems anymore – how to help them? At best, he could refer those who had better prognosis to group therapy at the National Health Fund. There, they were taught how to handle their own disease. He was prescribing drugs both the better and the worse for prognosis. At times, handfuls of drugs. This is the cheapest and simplest solution. How else? He will not solve his problems for anyone. He had problems himself.
The youngster believed that he would help people – the Polish reality quickly robbed him of his dreams. He worked a lot – he built a house for his wife, for a child, for a family. He was supposed to be a man of success. He worked to be a successful man.
Today he had no one to tell about his suffering and his disappointed hopes. Every day he woke up with dread. Over the course of a day, he managed to suppress this fear, to push it to the very bottom of his consciousness. Tablets, he thought more than once. – It’s so hard to swallow your own death.
How to therapize a therapist
Or – a psychiatrist. It is he who has to work in a ward for thirty people, to which he is forced to admit fifty people. It is here that they bring people after suicide attempts, in clinical depression, psychoses, arousal states, and delirias. How to help them when there is a shortage of funds? How to help a married couple where he and she both suffer from schizophrenia and two children are left in the care of their grandparents? Every psychiatrist is like Atlas, carrying the whole world on his shoulders…
Read also: The dramatic state of Polish psychiatry – we are on the penultimate place in Europe
Workplace
As in the stereotypical joke about lunatics. Doors without handles. TV behind glass. Transparent door to the toilet (allows the paramedics to see if the patient has killed himself there). Men and women in one ward. One shower and no queues for it. And the stench, the overwhelming stench of excrement mixed with the smell of unwashed socks and a cheap cooking pot. 2200 calories per head. Patients are fighting for food – they are hungry. Drugs increase your appetite. Therefore, everyone gets a lot, a lot of bread for dinner.
Under the pressure
According to the estimates of the Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology 8 million Poles suffer from mental disorders. These data do not include children and adolescents. If the youngest were taken into account, the number of the disturbed and sick would rise to 12 million. Two times more people commit suicide in our country than die in accidents. What is the treatment like? Psychiatrists work under constant pressure – the only thing they can do for patients who are even located in hospital corridors is to administer drugs to them. The safety of patients is at risk – constant staff shortages mean that the doctor is often alone – there is nobody to reassure agitated residents, and it sometimes happens that someone should be tied to a hospital bed with belts. There are times when you need to put on someone’s straitjacket. Patients run away – then the doctor is obliged to call the police. If they stay, in attacks of aggression they are able to attack the doctor – and he has to deal with it. Doctors cope knowing that it may end badly overnight.
The system causes doctors to quit their jobs – as soon as they can enter their clinical internship into their CVs – they flee to private facilities. Those who stay, after a few years of work, start to get sick – with neuroses, anxiety or depression. They cannot cope with the fact that they cannot help so many suffering people. For example, patients who are already in such a condition after taking medication should be discharged from the children’s ward to make room for the more injured. According to the data provided by the National Health Fund, there are 37 child and adolescent psychiatric day wards throughout Poland. There are several or a dozen children per bed. The voivodship looks the best in this respect: Dolnośląskie, then Lubelskie, the worst – Podlaskie (11 places in day child psychiatry wards per 218 thousand children in the province) and Wielkopolskie (44 places per 700 thousand children) – we read in the Watchdog report from 2019 prepared by Roksana Maślankiewicz and Martyna Bójko.
Also read: Over 14 sick on one bed. The daily drama of Polish children
After all, psychiatric wards, including children and adolescents, are chronically underfunded. There is a lack of psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, modern drugs and therapies as well. At the Warsaw Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology at ul. Sobieski, there is only one TV set in the closed ward, a modest reading room equipped mainly with gift books, where a nice psychologist is in charge, who tries to play checkers or chess with the sick. She is slowly lacking in motivation.
***
Andrzej prepared a long, thick rope. He tied a rope and threw it over the thick chestnut branch. He stood on a dry log. He put the rope around his neck. He tied his legs and hands – so as not to defend himself, not to shake. Then he jumped off the trunk. He had previously sent his ex-wife a letter with a quote from John Donne: “no man is an island on its own; each is a piece of a continent, a piece of land. The death of each person diminishes me, because I am united with humanity ”.
***
If you are experiencing a crisis, you can get professional, free help at the following numbers:
- 800 70 22 22: XNUMX/XNUMX Support Center for People in Mental Crisis (specialists also reply to e-mails: [email protected]);
- 116 123: Helpline for Adults in Emotional Crisis (open from Monday to Friday, 14.00-22.00);
- 116 111: a nationwide helpline for young people (open daily from 12.00-02.00).
Read also:
- She heard from the gynecologist that she looked slutty. «He said: kneeling to Częstochowa, you sinner»
- She asked for a doctor to come and they told her to knock on the head. “You can see the attitude towards patients”
- From heart to bottom. This is how he gets to know his patients
You haven’t been able to find the cause of your ailments for a long time? Do you want to tell us your story or draw attention to a common health problem? Write to the address [email protected] #Together we can do more