The feelings of doctors and nurses treating and caring for mental patients

Mental hospitals are places that, when mentioned, people will immediately think of people with unfortunate fates, stupid, crazy, often screaming, having panic attacks. However, under the attentive hands of doctors, especially nurses at Hanoi Mental Hospital, each person here is healed.

Working as a nurse at Department A, Hanoi Mental Hospital, every day Ms. Nguyen Thi Nhung wholeheartedly takes care of the health of patients, from taking medicine to personal activities.

“In other specialties, hospitalized patients will always have family members accompanying them to take care of them, but it is the opposite with mental patients. 95% of the patients here are taken care of by medical staff instead of their family members, from eating, drinking, bathing, haircutting, sleeping, excreting, to mental and psychological issues,” said Ms. Nhung.

The nurse's job is to measure blood pressure and take care of patients' health from giving medicine to personal activities.

At this hospital, most of the patients suffered from psychological trauma, life shocks that led to physical damage to the brain. Some people stared blankly at the sky and the earth, some bowed their heads and watched ants crawling by and laughed hysterically, some talked nonstop. Some people did not say a word all day, all month, but suddenly shouted, cursed, jumped on and beat and punched the doctor.

Therefore, during the 5 years of treating and caring for mentally ill patients, Ms. Nhung was repeatedly threatened and violently attacked by patients when they had a seizure.

“When they have seizures, they are very aggressive, 4-5 nurses and doctors have to hold and immobilize their limbs to inject medicine. However, that is when they are “crazy”, but when they are “sober”, they are extremely gentle, know their mistakes and show remorse and regret for making the doctor sad. They are very pitiful, many are discriminated against by neighbors, abandoned by their families, if we do not care for, take care of and treat them, will they still have the chance to return to normal life” – nurse Nhung shared.

Under the caring hands of nurses and doctors, every person here is healed.

Just like Ms. Nhung, Ms. Nguyen Phuong Dung - Nurse at Department A, Hanoi Mental Hospital was also attacked and cursed by her own patients many times. However, it was her love and sympathy for the patients' situation that helped Ms. Dung overcome.

“In the first days working here, I couldn’t help but feel scared and worried every time I saw patients having a panic attack or destroying things... But over time, I got used to it and felt pity and sympathy for these unfortunate people. Not only is society prejudiced against mental patients, many patients are also rejected and shunned by their own relatives and families. When they come to us, we must never consider them “crazy people”, if anything, just “special patients”, said Ms. Dung.

According to Ms. Dung, mentally ill people often suffer discrimination and alienation from the community, so they crave to talk, whether they are familiar or unfamiliar. Therefore, here, nurses and doctors call patients by name and remember clearly the characteristics of their illness and circumstances.

Ms. Phuong Dung always considers patients as her family.

“Sometimes we even play the role of lovers, parents, friends… to make them feel close, familiar and trusting, to vent their frustrations and relieve their inner stress. Intimate conversations and inquiries are both diagnostic and treatment services, and a way to help them gradually reconnect with society. When they recover, they are sober enough to say two words of thanks. The happiness at that time is hard to describe,” Dung shared.

Behind the always locked iron door of the psychiatric ward are stories containing many precious things about medical ethics and humanity. With a loving heart, a sense of responsibility and love for the profession, they - the nurses who treat and care for psychiatric patients have been trying every day to spread warm humanity to help patients return to normal life.

Source: https://www.congluan.vn/noi-niem-y-bac-si-dieu-tri-cham-soc-benh-nhan-tam-than-post272067.html