Kathryn Ridley

Review of Martinez Health Center

This place is ridiculous in terms of how they trea...

This place is ridiculous in terms of how they treat mentally ill patients; yes, I'm bipolar, no, this doesn't make me deserving of such awful treatment. Are the majority of employees here who interact with mentally ill patients even trained in interactions with them? Get a grip.

Upon entering the psyche ward, one of the first things I heard from a nurse was, "Your behavior isn't normal. Why would you act this way. This is not normal. You need to do differently."
I am BIPOLAR. What do you think the definition of a mental illness is? That we just "act normal"? I am assuredly able to just, let's say, turn my condition off and act "normal". Of course that's how this works. Obviously, I've been a fool for taking my illness seriously.

Another employee told my boyfriend, when he came to pick me up after an hour of waiting because one of the employees forgot to tell the person watching me. (The same one who admonished me for not being "normal") that I WAS DISCHARGED (I had been told I was discharged and asked after this hour what in the world was going on. I had to ASK to be discharged MORE THAN ONCE even while there were barely any patients in the psyche ward. An absolute example not only of how to be unprofessional, but also to display a lack of respect.)

When another employee retrieved my boyfriend to tell him I FINALLY was being let out, she told me he "shouldn't be my babysitter". So, someone who suffers from a sometimes debilitating mental illness doesn't deserve to receive support from someone who loves them, including a partner of three years and a best friend of six years.

I find it funny she would assume I was a burden to him, and I wonder if someone with a non-mental chronic illness would be told the same thing.

In addition, my boyfriend was told that before he arrived that he could visit me, and so brought magazines and snacks to make me feel better. When he arrived, however, we were both told we couldn't see each other without any explanation. Why were we lied to half an hour apart when all I'd been doing was sitting around waiting to be released. Had staring at the wall or something made me too unstable?

To top this all off, the documents I received when I was dispatched labeled me has depressed after I'd told multiple psychologists who came to see me that I was formally diagnosed with bipolar and was on lamotrigine (Lamictal). Perhaps they thought I was being dramatic or perhaps they thought they knew better than I did after knowing me for seven hours despite me having a diagnosis. After everything else, I wouldn't doubt it.

Do NOT go to this hospital if you're going for some reason related to mental illness. I am appalled with the behavior of the staff, and cannot believe that these perceptions of mental illness would ever be tolerated in a medical facility of any worth. In my opinion, in the case of treatment for mental illness, this place has no worth. Absolutely abysmal.