When you are living with a loved one in an institution, everyday is a new adventure, and it’s not all good.  There is one payphone on the unit.  And frequently it is broken, or sometimes patients get on and call 911 to report that they are being ” held captive”

Then the hospital shuts down that phone, oftentimes forgetting to turn it back on.

Not having communication in 2017 is devastating.  Patients do not have access to email or texting or skype, prisoners have more rights than that!  Maybe their conversations are recorded, but they have access to email, and hospital patients do not.  Do you know what it is like for extended family to NOT be able to email their loved one?

Busy aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and friends, are just at the mercy of the one payphone on the unit, which is, when it is working, it is busy.

I have been called by staff to say : your family member would like to talk to you.  Please call,  so I call, I call, and call, and hours later, I call the nurse:  I say I have been calling and they say “well, that’s the patient’s payphone, if no one is in the hallway to pick up, no one will pick up”..

Sorry but you called me!  You called me to tell me to call the payphone to talk to my loved one, and no one brought him to the phone?  Really?  So he thinks I haven’t even tried to reach him.  Leading to whatdoyouthink?  More despair, more depression, and more hopelessness.

Not cool.  All over the hospital are signs that say: RECOVERY; RECOVERY is POSSIBLE; Long Live Recovery.

So, the phone is broken and we have to wait til Monday to fix it.  Really?  No one can fix it now?  Back in the day we had  blue laws, now we work seven days a week 24/7.  In regular hospitals, the communication system works.  And if it breaks, it’s fixed!

I am writing to bring hope, to bring knowledge and education, to let the public know what is really happening to their precious funds, because the law says that these large institutions should be done away with and small community based rehabilitation centers were  supposed to be the future

Where are they?  Many states have them many patients are in better straights by living in the community, at least they have phones.