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No surprise at death
• I am saddened but unsurprised by the fourth Clozapine-related
death in Camden (Patient died despite alert over drug, Jan 26).
What I find galling is the display of indifference by the Trust
and a perverse idea of a nurse’s duties – imagine
that sort of statement by a coronary care department.
If a psychiatric nurse cannot recognise nor monitor psychiatric
drug-related emergencies, then precisely who is responsible
for doing so?
Doesn’t “care” include monitoring of the effects
of medication?
I have seen patients put on Clozapine, blood results showing
a significant difference in white blood cells, yet the patient
remaining on the drug. So what is the point of blood monitoring
if nothing is done?
Even with other ‘antipsychotic’ drugs monitoring of
effects can be inadequate by community and inpatient staff.
I’ve visited friends in hospital clearly suffering from
dystonic reactions (drug-induced muscle spasms) and they have
been left like that for days before any treatment has been administered
to counteract this painful but non-fatal reaction.
When cancer patients are neutropenic (their immune system wiped
out by chemotherapy) they are intensively nursed in isolation.
Yet someone experiencing a psychiatric drug-induced neutropenia
is just left.
It seems to me that no side-effects are deemed too bad for psychiatric
patients and people have been led to believe that we are all
okay so long as we take our medication when there is ample evidence
to show otherwise. Some of the non-fatal effects of psychiatric
medication are pretty awful. Who wants to gain two-three stone,
shuffle, dribble, develop diabetes, feel emotionless and tired
all the time? Why should people be forced to take this under
the Mental Health Act if this doesn’t take away a person’s
experience of hearing voices. Studies show that 25-50 per cent
of people still hear voices despite taking medication –
it just sedates those individuals.
All we ever hear about is the wonder of medication. If so, then
how come the recovery rate from schizophrenia hasn’t changed
since the introduction of antipsychotic drugs 50 years ago?
There remains no medical test to clearly demonstrate the validity
of the diagnosis. It’s ironic that it’s being likened
to being diabetic by psychiatrists, given the new ‘atypical
antipsychotic’ drugs can cause diabetes! Anyhow, there
are definitive tests for diabetes, there are none for schizophrenia,
it’s simply a subjective opinion – nothing more.
In saying this I do not in anyway play down the distress people
endure, I know this as someone diagnosed as schizophrenic. It
has taken me years to learn to live with my voices as well as
I can, but the reason I withhold my name and address to this
letter is an indictment of my position in society, and the discrimination
associated with a psychiatric diagnosis.
Name and address supplied |
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