Triggering (SI) - Rotten hospital treatment

Tomorrowwillcome · 22-07-2009, 03:19 PM

I cut a great chunk out of my arm so I took it to York hospital who told me I would need to go to leeds for a skin graft so they paid for a taxi and I went.

Leeds refused to treat me because I was a self harmer. I now have an injury that will take months to heal and will be at risk of infection. Their bedside maner was really rude, I felt terrible I am now feeling full of self loathing but I am going to get passed this and try to stop the injuries

Left. · 22-07-2009, 03:27 PM

*hugs*
i'm so sorry that you were treated in that way.
Its really unacceptable that they refused to treat you!!
At the end of the day, you were injured, whether it was the result of self harm or a car crash you are ENTITLED to be treated. It actually disgusts me the way some doctors think they can talk to/treat you.

It may be worth going back to York hospital and explain that they refused to treat you and they may be able to make a direct referral or something?

x

Animad · 22-07-2009, 05:25 PM

It depends what you did but stitching you up and plastic surgery involving skin grafts is different (don't say more than you have here about what you've done). Skin Grafts take a lot of care and involve the creation of another wound somewhere, they take weeks to heal and there are many complications aswell as them being hard to do. One problem with them being done to a SH'er is that they may not care for them properly or may cut over them which will destroy the hard work they've done and will lead to more problems than it solved. They won't do plastic surgery with skin grafts unless they have to, and that is with everyone, not just SH'ers as it has such a high complication rate and a lot of the time they do fail as the blood supply to them may not be normal and they can become infected/ break down so try not to think that it is just because of the reasons why you did it.

I would discuss this with a doctor at home and look at the best ways to care for your wound now to reduce the risks of it getting infected as there are different ways of managing and bandaging wounds to improve healing/ reduce infection risk.

Tomorrowwillcome · 22-07-2009, 06:22 PM

The injury covers quite a large area where there is no skin and alot of fat tissue has also been removed. The doctor said that if I were not a self harmer he would not have hesitated about doing the surgery as it really needed a graft but did not want to waste the time grafting only for me to cut it again. I tried to explain that I would not distroy the work he had done, I normally just cut this is the first time I have ever taken large chunks out of my arm. He said that a graft would take a much shorter time to heal but he was simply refusing a graft because I self harm. I was being treated differently for being a self harmer. I was treated well at York with pleasent staff and they have seen me a lot but the Leeds nursing staff were rude and unpleasent and I don't think even as a self harmer I should be treated any differently than if I had sustained a wound in any other way.

shadow-light · 22-07-2009, 06:30 PM

I lived in York for most of my life... Leeds is pritty bad SI treatment wise... then again I got fairly bad treatment in York hospital too made complaints several times after been refused treatment and passing out in the waiting room and things a few times, so glad to hear that that's improved since I left (3 years ago)

I'd advise you go back to York hospital and speak to someone about it.

but I do think Animad is correct, skin grafts and stitches are 2 very different things... even for none SI things they will sometimes refuse to do what is essentially plastic surgery on people who don't cohere to certain guidelines... And rightly or wrongly many doctors have had negative experiances of SIers not looking after wounds or re-opening things that they have spent time an dmoney reparing and these experiances will tend to have a negative impact on their veiw of SIers in general (my brain die half way through that so I hope it made sense...)
however, even if they refused skin grafts I would have expected/hoped that they would have offered alternative treatment

Cupcake · 22-07-2009, 08:00 PM

I've had the same happen to me. Had to go all the way into london only to be told they wouldn't do it because I was still currently hurting myself. I wish they would have told me that before I made the anxiety inducing trek there though.

*hugs* Sorry this reply was useless. I think it's a pretty standard thing to be refused skin grafts if you do hurt yourself though, but am not sure.