Published on 12, July, 2020
I’m autistic, and I’ve been dealing with depression and social anxiety for over a decade, now. My family has been battling the NHS to get the little support I have now. I am wondering how other autistic people are finding the NHS.
My first issue is that there are no autistic professionals accessible to me, which means I’m having to try and educate every professional I encounter on autism. I’ve been struggling to properly understand what autism is, myself, so I haven’t been doing great. I’m thankful to have an Adult Autism Intensive Support Team that operates in my area, because they have now taken up the role of educating NHS professionals on autism, but that means I’m now having to hope these other human beings internalise what is said to them, view me as equal, and treat my problems as equally as serious as a non-autistic person’s problems, which has happened rarely so far, it feels.
My second issue is the interactions with the professionals who do not care that I am autistic. Having a psychiatric doctor laugh when I told him I was autistic, asking me if it was something I had read on the internet. Having an occupational therapist try asking me to separate myself from my autism. Medication being the solution, for the time being, while I waste years of my life terrified of the world around me. I wonder what else there is that I’ve forgotten to mention. I should document the things that make me feel miserable.
If I were a caged animal, I’d have somebody in my corner. Somebody would scream “This is neglect!” Unfortunately, I’m an autistic human, so I don’t really have that. I have a team of NHS employees in my corner, who aren’t willing to bite the hand that feeds them, verbally, of course. Who would be willing to criticise the one that pays them, that gives them what they need to make it to the next day? I’m trapped, because they’re trapped. I’m losing hope. I have no faith in the NHS, or in British society to force our political leaders, those whose jobs it is to serve the people of our nation, to come to the aid of any autistic person.
In short: I have no faith in the NHS’ ability to help autistic people. How about you?
i dont believe the NHS is capable of dealing with ANY problem at all.i went in with a dog bite.... i kid you not, they sat me down and opened up their web browser and googled how to treat a dog bite.... no seriously, i already know how it supposed to be treated myself as its common sense, its bare basic knowledge... they had to google it... and ofcourse found they had to clean the wound and give me a tetanus jab, which i already knew, i went in for the purpose of getting a tetanus jab for it, but they didnt know anything and had to google it and thats just bare basic knowledge youd know as a child before your even educated and they didnt know and had to google.... your doctors are as good as google search now, and we used to mock people using google search to diagnose problems, and yet our doctors are now reliant on google search for the most basic of things that they honestly should know.i have no faith in the nhs at all... im actually afraid of how bad it is as if you need actual serious help you wont get it, they will cause your death, they dont know what they are doing. they are clueless.my indian friend at work had kidney stones, she went to the nhs crying in pain and they ignored her sent her away and said to take some pain killers and ignore it... they didnt even diagnose properly they kept saying "could be this, might be that" and was unsure.... she was really annoyed at this because in her country you get treated right away, and you dont get sent away without treatment. she went to india for 2 weeks on holiday, while she was there she went to a hospital and got surgery, in india you can get surgery on the very day you walk into the hospital and get seen to right away and surgery within at least 12 hours.... they sorted her issue and removed 8 kidney stones... shes ok now.... she was suffering under the nhs because they didnt do anything and couldnt do anything and didnt even know properly and sent her away. she now agrees that private system is better than this. only cost her like £700 but she was willing to pay as she wanted it sorted and it was agony and the free nhs doesnt do anything and leaves you suffering in pain and refuses to help.we have to face the fact the nhs needs to be completely changed or scrapped.... for the betterment of our health, so that we can actually have a health service.
Completely agree!