Dr David Healy

Dr David Healy 2016-07-25 Person 1 5 0

I suffered from enduring mental health problems for many years and was treated by the Hergest Unit in Bangor. With the notable exceptions of one nurse and an occupational therapist, my experiences were appalling. I was constantly told that I had a 'borderline personality disorder' (I was later diagnosed and treated for bipolar disorder) and was 'untreatable'. In the end the Hergest Unit used to call the police and have me thrown out if I arrived there to ask for help. The Hergest Unit prosecuted me on a number of occasions for very serious offences and the cases against me collapsed - yet no-one asked what on earth was going on and why such serious allegations were being made against a patient who had made complaint. Eventually my lawyer extracted my medical records from the hospital - we needed a High Court Order to achieve this because the hospital refused to release the records. The contents were staggering. Among many other interesting things, it was documented that Dr David Healy had stated that the police were to be called if I sought treatment at the Unit. David Healy was not my consultant and I had not been told that he had made the decision to involve the police. I still do not know why he made this decision or why he was having any input into what was laughingly called my 'care' at all. I was aware that many other patients were also being diagnosed with borderline personality disorders and were being removed from the Hergest Unit by the police. (Like me, many of these patients received other diagnoses if they managed to obtain treatment outside the region.) I became very good friends with one of these patients and eventually he too called lawyers in. It was revealed that in his case too it was David Healy who had insisted on police involvement. David Healy was not his consultant. In a desperate attempt to secure treatment for him, this man's partner later paid a visit to David Healy and asked him what happens now. She told me that David Healy replied that this patient would carry on harming himself until one day he'd succeed in killing himself. Interestingly despite this dire prediction, this man still received no input that he found helpful. He continues to suffer today and has now given up trying to get care from the Hergest Unit. My own unhappy experiences with the Hergest Unit continued until the Unit manager told my GP that 'mistakes were made but we'll never treat her again' - my GP told me to walk away at this point. I was aware that there was a very high number of patient deaths associated with the Hergest Unit and that it was gaining an appalling reputation. I eventually received an apology from the Chief Executive (who had replaced the CEO who had refused to hand over my medical records or investigate my complaints) and I wrote directly to the Welsh Government about my concerns. That was four years ago and there are still regular reports of patient deaths associated with the Hergest Unit. A number of very damning inspection reports have been compiled about the Unit. One of these reports mentioned dreadful staff relationships and that there were two consultants at the Unit who refused to speak to each other and that this was impacting negatively on patient care - these consultants were Tony Roberts and David Healy. Another internal report commissioned by the Health Board described the Unit as being in deep trouble. Again, dreadful staff relationships were described. Over the past few years, two psychiatrists who worked at the Hergest Unit have committed suicide. The Heath Board have found it very difficult to recruit staff to work there due to its toxic reputation. The chairman of the Health Board that runs the Unit has admitted that there seems to be a bullying culture within the Health Board and the Board is now in special measures because of the problems in the mental health services. (There has undoubtedly been bullying of staff who have tried to expose poor care and abuse, but the irony is that staff who I know to have been responsible for neglect and abuse have themselves made counter complaints of bullying when they have been challenged.) David Healy has been a leading consultant in this region for many years and his CV boasts of how much input he has had into these services. I therefore presume that he should shoulder some responsibility for the sorry state of these services. At the same time, he has become famous for his expose of the wrongdoings of big pharma. The many people who admire him for this seem to have no idea of what has been going on under his nose in north Wales and how many patients (and indeed genuinely bullied staff) have suffered. And I'd still love to know if he has any regrets about the way that I and others were treated at his hands but somehow I doubt that I'll ever get an answer to that. This website asks for constructive suggestions as to how care could be improved. The Hergest Unit is irretrievable and needs to be shut down. The dysfunctional teams of staff within need to be split up and people need to be disciplined and if necessary dismissed when wrongdoing is demonstrated. Patients complaints should be properly investigated and patients not demonised and vilified if they allege malpractice. If patients do not seem to be improving, instead of dismissing them with a label of 'personality disorder', it should be asked whether they have not improved due to the paucity of care on offer. And when it is admitted that 'mistakes were made' the solution to the mess should not be to refuse to treat the person who did not make the mistakes to relieve the embarrassment and save the careers and reputations of those who did.