Helen - Interview 6  

Helen - Interview 6

Age at Interview: 53
Sex: Female
Background: Helen is a warden of a student hostel. She is divorced and has 1 grown- up daughter. She had another daughter who died. Ethnic background/nationality: White British.

Brief outline:Helen’s daughter, Charlotte, had mental health problems. When Charlotte was 30 she was found dead in her flat. She may have taken an overdose or may have taken her own life. Helen has been well supported. She also finds comfort by helping homeless people.

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Helen points out that many people with ‘drug problems’ end up with psychiatric problems. She thinks the different professional teams should work together.

 



She was under a psychiatric team, not the team that she was with for the last two years, a different one, and when I wrote to them explaining that I thought that actually now she was taking harder drugs, class A drugs, they immediately put her over to the drugs team, and they said that they couldn’t see her at the same time. That when she got her drug problem sorted out, they would see her again in the psychiatric team. But when we got to the drugs team and we spoke to them there, they were really quite annoyed at that, because they said, actually they said, it’s time they came up to the twenty first century, that most people with psychiatric problems, not most but a lot nowadays have drugs problems as well. And a lot of people with drugs problems end up with psychiatric problems. And it needs to be dealt with as a whole thing, not as a separate thing.

 

So there’s a lack of communication as well between the two teams?

 

Yes, Yes. But it, this team at the end they actually did deal with all of it, but not very many, they have so many people on their books, that there’s a lot of people that need their help that don’t get it because they’re just, they’re just over worked.

 

The drug team?

 

Yeah. On the, on the, on the, it’s a psychiatric team.

 

But who are looking after people who have both.

 

They have multiple, they people they take care of have to have multiple problems.

 

But you felt that the original psychiatric team should’ve gone on caring for her.

 

I think they let her down. Yes definitely.

Bereavement due to suicide
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