Dear Editor,
Yesterday I read the Daily Mail, I came across a news story, reporting on the story involving paranoid schizophrenic Matthew Daley who has been convicted for the manslaughter of Donald Lock. I was filled instantly with emotions of, Sadness, Anger, Frustration and Disbelief. I then read that another nine cases are to be re investigated by Sussex Partnership NHS Trust. All have the same thing in common. THE FAMILIES WERE NOT LISTENED TO.
I wrote an article for Your Thurrock on the 17/2/15 Entitled Thurrocks Silent Witnesses To Mental Health. I was not listened to for six years, struggling to get a diagnosis for a family member, that would give the correct treatment and care. Instead i had a safeguarding raised against me by Thurrock Council and SEPT. This was removed quickly and an apology for the wording in the document was given. Family members are best placed to give an account of someones mental behavior, we witness what the health professionals do not see. I have a diagnosis for my family member now and that diagnosis is very different for what they was being treated for in the past six years. It was a hard long slog to get this diagnosis and correct treatment. I was able to go to the correct people and keep on and on, i was not going to give up.
What about the people who can not fight and simply have to watch whilst tragedy unfolds. Those family members that no one will listen to. I call them SILENT WITNESSES. We witness everything but are kept silent!!!. This has to stop, information kept on computer with all agencies must be collated.When a family member or friend raises the red flag help must be instant. Someone with a serious mental health condition can deteriorate very quickly with devastating consequences. This complicated, dysfunctional mental health system must change.
I am still trying to clear my name involving the safeguarding which when i read devastated me, as wording was used that i did not have my family members best interests at heart. That could not have been further from the truth.I was desperately trying to keep them alive. I am a strong person, i will always be there for my family member, and will persist in my campaign to have the voices of the SILENT WITNESSES HEARD. Yet i still read these tragic life destroying stories, WHY ?.
