What it’s like working in a psych hospital WITHOUT security.
I’ve been a psych tech for a year and a half. At first it was so fulfilling, I was sure I would be a psych nurse. Since then I’ve been assaulted so many times. I’ve had grown men put me in a headlock and try to break my jaw. I’ve been pushed, spit at, kicked, hit. I’ve been assaulted so many times
I don’t even remember all of them.
In march a patient broke my finger on my dominant hand. I was put on restrictions from holds and physical therapy twice a day. Yesterday the staffing was so bad I was in multiple assault codes with a fractured finger, wrestling down a man that just punched my coworkers who are my closest friends and said he was going to attack all of us.
This hospital has zero security guards and only about 5 male staff members, half of which are on medical leave from being assaulted brutally. We had to call 911 yesterday, because of which administration was upset and told the cops they shouldn’t take the patient. They said they would be reviewing the footage to see what we could have done differently.
I feel like I’m in an abusive relationship at work. Every once in a while, I care for a patient in deep psychosis, who comes out into a wonderful recovery. Those kinds of patients make me feel like it It’s worth it, but the system is set up to fail. We’re told by administration to only let them shower at certain times to lock their Doors in the daytime meanwhile, they only provide therapy three hours a day and that’s if it doesn’t get canceled. Only 1 is clinical group therapy, the others are either art or a game. The “sensory room” is essentially a blank closet with a rocking chair in it. They admit patients with assaulted backgrounds into a restrictive environment with hardly any therapy and provide us no security to defend their senseless rules. The therapy rooms don’t even fit as many chairs as there are patients!!! Some of the patients only get to see their doctors through zoom.
There’s been times where they’ve staffed us two techs and one nurse for nearly 30 patients. Once there was only two nurses in the building for about 80 patients. I feel like there’s zero chance I can continue working here without long-term injury sometimes I have panic attacks in the night because I know work the next morning may risk my life. I loved this hospital. I gave everything to it. I worked nearly 60 hours a week for a year straight. I was helping others and happy doing it. Bad administration took that from me. A staff member has been sent to urgent care or the er during or after work for the past four days straight.