AMPPOL IT Bipolar

Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital - Crimes against humanity

The beginning of November 2014 i suffered a nervous breakdown and was admitted to the G.J. Crookes Hospital in Scottburgh, Kwa Zulu Natal, South Africa, after less than two weeks a girl general practitioner, Dr Ndlovo decided to transfer me to the Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital nestled in the foothills of the Underberg still in Kwa Zulu Natal but in the middle of nowhere. Most of the patients there where admitted for drug induced paranoia or criminal acts.
For example it took my wife, Jabu and i to return home on the 14/01/2015 seven hours by four taxis and we missed the last taxi as it was late and we had to walk for one and one half hour up a hill to get home, we arrived after sunset. The non scenic route takes one and one half hours by a low level flying sixteen seater Quantum ambulance transporter.

These are factual events as of 13th January 2015 which occured at the Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital and G.J. Crookes Hospital, three months prior to the 13th January 2015. I am working on the typos and grammatical errors.

To top it all i have to go back to the Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital for more evaluation by a general practitioner as there currently is no psychiatrist at the Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital and ones fate is decided by a general practionioner. Did you see the movie Rwanda, well what is to follow is very similar. I was the only Caucasian patient in the two wings of the Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital amongst forty five Africans. What a nightmare, i was assaulted by an psychotic patient who tried to steal my breakfast, six slices of bread with a bit of butter and tea. i limped for two weeks after this incident with terrible pain in my left buttock. Patients who assault other patients are hit with batons by the security guards and then given Clopixol Acuphase injections to knock them for a few days. The patients fight and hit each other for tobacco especially when the tobbacco runs out and i m the only one who has tobacco. It is impossible to enjoy a hand rolled cigarette by oneself as i was surrounded by twenty psychotic or semi psychotic patients each and every time demanding two pulls of my fag and the patients act as if its there right to my tobacco. Never mind food or gifts received from visitors, one has to eat what one receives at the nursing sisters station or all the food will be taken over by the patients.
What a relief to find out that prison is worse than the Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital from two of the patients who actually where in prison, i am being a bit salcastic in this sentence.

On one occasion a patient was bugging me with questions and i told him to speak to the nurse. The nurse told me to "fuck off" and when i went to the sister in charge to report this the security guard followed me and tried to prevent me from speaking to the sister in charge, the security guard from LK Solutions Security then said to me that i am "rubbish" and he will call the other security guards to beat me with battons.

Bathing time is African style like the majority of Africans in South Africa bath in a large plastic dish with about ten litres of water or less. I was quite used to this as this is how i bathed at my wives, Jabu house. Above is a pic of how the basins looked like.

I feel sorry for the patients as most of them receive no visitors and i have never heard of or seen before this episode that nurses walk around with polycop plumbing pipe about four hundred milimeters long and fifteen milimeters thick and assualt the patients. Is this Psychiatry?

On the other hand the sisters in charge and some staff sisters where quite good to me and where very helpfull, but they have to follow the Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital rules.

Medication is handed out at 09:30 after breakfast and the patients share the same water cups to down the medication, thank God I do not have turberculousis or some other horrible disease from sharing cups with 45 patients.

The patients spend the whole day in a closed courtyard, fifteen by twenty meters and urinate in one corner of the courtyard as the patients are not allowed to go inside the wards to urinate during the day. The stench of urine is unbearable in that corner of the courtyard unless it rains and the urine washes away into the drain. On one night the urinal was blocked inside the ward and the urinal overflowed with urine for three days. More stench and those patients without shoes walked in the urine. The toilets do not work and faeces build up till someone flushes the toilet with a bucket, most nauseating.

Water is sometimes not available during the night when the water bucket and one cup is not left on the other side of the locked grill gate, never mind the fire hazard. If there was a fire there is no chance in hell that all five wards could be open to let out the patients. The wards, ten patients per ward are locked at night as some windows where broken with axxess to the courtyard from the passage.

At this stage I think I would be ashamed if I was any part of the medical profession, especially the Doctors whom are aware of all this and general practitioners who treat psych patients as there is currently no psychiatrist in the Hospital.

I have sixteen years experience as an electrician in the construction field and seventeen years experience in Information Technology mainly using the Linux operating system as well as Microsoft Windows, yet at the Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital i must take orders from cleaners and nurses under twenty five years of age, one of the duties of the nurses is to write reports about the patients. If the nurses don't like a patient they write negative reports about a patient. I found that most of the male staff nurses had more of a heart than the females, some female nurses and sisters are real bitches. On my last day when as i typed before attacked and surrounded by thirty or so patients for a fag, the one male staff nurse looked on in despair but he could do nothing. I was so happy and excited to go home on LOA (leave of absence) so one of the nurses asked me if i was having a relapse (from my excitement) can you believe it. The nurses play little mind games and notarize everything a patient does in the courtyard during the day which is mostly sleep. Like i typed before 45 or so nut cases and four sexy nurses just does not go, the males all want the attention of the nurses. Some of the nurses are very very shaftable but i think most of them are into bondage. We where all to go for a haircut and at first i refused. I did not want a kaal kop (no hair African style), so i eventually said i would like my beard trimmed but the nursing sister said i could not go anymore. She had the hots for me but was playing hard to get. One has to have a beard as there are no razors available and the patients my slit each others throats with the razors.

I was unable to pay my bills as i was in the Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital and G.J. Crookes Hospital, joy to the world, i now have "hundreds" of debt collector companies after me and my credit rating has dropped to zero. Of course no shrink, G.P., sister, nurse nor social worker will help me out with my debt but someone was very eagar to put me away to Umzimkulu psych hospital because of their grave faux pas. The social worker at the Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital has ninety patients in the queue and i was lucky to see the general practionioner on the 13/01/2015 as he was still busy attending to patients from November 2014. This frightens me as i may wait for weeks to see the general practionioner on my return.

Stephen Fry (a BBC presenter) based in London AFAIK has experienced mental health problems for much of his life. I am sure he did not receive the treatment i received in Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital, not for the life of my can i still phathom that Psychiatric patients are treated with assualt and abuse as part of there treatment to become well again even thought most of the patients are in the Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital are there for drug induced psychosis where they stabbed or assualted someone.

The Zulu language is spoken most of the time and i don't have a clue what is going on especially at the twice daily forced prayer sessions but i have to join in anyway. Jabu my wife is a Zulu girl yet i only understand a bit of Zulu, like "faga lo makulu mthondo kona la ingquza". Jabu is quite religious so i don't have anything against religion if i at least i could understand the singing and chanting.

I think it's disgusting that South Africa receives billions of ZAR in medical grants from overseas for this kind of treatment and never mind the theft. I had a terrible summer flu for two weeks and only realized later that the roll on deodrant shared by forty five patients was for woman. The roll on ordered for the patients at the Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital is stolen by someone working in the Hospital for there own use and most of the nursing staff are woman, can't figure out the theft bit as the nursing staff have three to eight thousand ZAR smart phones and drive new 150 000 ZAR plus motor vechicles.

I was treated slightly better than the rest of the patients because i am Caucasian, and like i typed before the only Caucasian within miles of the Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital. I hope someone takes notice of this part of my book so my African friends (patients) can receive better treatment instead of being assaulted with battons, high heels and plumbing pipe.

I don't know anymore what is the official language of South Africa but the medication i took home on my leave of absence, the instructions where in Zulu.

I actually fear for my life at Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital, the ward where i am now is called Male Block Two. And one of the patients in this ward is some kind of martial arts expert. On my arrival he had to show off his moves whist we where waiting to be counted. (Counting of patients involves the patients sitting for one hour doing nothing waiting the shift to change and then be counted.) From time to time this "martial arts patient" goes a bit nuts especially on the tobacco subject like most other patients, 70% of the patients. Pure joy knowing i can be assaulted or worse anytime for a small amount of tobacco or food.

Above is a pic of an example of the small pieces of tobacco some patients would gather for hours to roll one fag using a newspaper as rolling paper

Patients are admitted to Male Block One where 80% of the patients are psychotic, 40% from actually been mentally ill and the rest mostly drug induced pyschosis or being sent to Umzimkulu for some criminal act. Smoking of tobacco is allowed in the ward. Sorry to burst your bubble, i was never once tested positive for mary jane nor coke nor any other magic mushroom. Then the transition to Male Block Two where smoking tobacco is also allowed. Male Block Three, i dread to go there, there is absolutly no smoking allowed and i have been smoking tobacco for thirty five years. I had a small nervous breakdown on admittance to Male Block One and then to Male Block Two. Each transition is like some kind of initiation ceremony where the patients test to see if they can obtain tobacco and food out of me. One patient actually sits on my bed up to and hour waiting for me to light up as he figures what's mine is his. Not all the patients are like this thank God and i recon i have made a few friends.

The tobacco saga occurs with all new patients and their tobacco or food is quickly consumed in a few hours. Watching lions, hyenas or vultures on TV or in real life on a kill can give a good picture of the food and tobacco episodes, meaning the food and tobacco brought by visitors to the patients.

Hand rolled fag

Tobacco smoke contains many harmful chemicals such as carbon monoxide, cyanide, nicotine and tar, which cause disease and death. Non-smokers and ex-smokers on average, live longer and are healthier than smokers. For more information call +27117203145

Above is a pic of a hand rolled fag the patients used to roll when i had rizla rolling paper in stock, newspaper was normally used, bit harsh when one has a cold or flu, the newspaper that is.

Boredom is a real killer and lucky enough my sister bought me a few magazines (to the disapproval of some staff nurses as there where semi naked girls in the magazines, wow can you handle that, maybe the staff where afraid that the patients would start shafting each other, too many happy clappies rule this world on a Sabbath day) and a novel with large font as my multi focals where stolen at G.J. Crookes Hospital, Scottburgh, this was Xmas of 2014 on the 22nd of December 2014. My previous business, AMPPOL IT Linux CD's & DVD's keep me busy for sixteen hours a day so you can imagine doing sweet fuck all most of the day from sunrise till 21:00. Some of the patients whom have been at the Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital for months, up to nine months or more love it there, free food, free accomandation and free medication, at the taxpayers expense, joy to the world. Lets face it most South Africans have one meal per day if that and at the Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital:

I rather enjoy this in the pic above than the menu below

09:30 Breakfast: Six slices of bread with margarine on three of the slices and tea with milk and sugar, sometimes no milk
13:00 Lunch: Rice or phutu pap or saltless samp and 25 gramms of meat unless there is mince meat then 50 gramms, drumstick of chicken sometimes on Sundays
16:30 Supper: Rice and beans or pap and pilchards
20:00: Black over sweetened tea (laced with stay soft) and four slices of bread, two of them with margarine

No need to complain, wow at G.J. Crookes Hospital, the food was better, at least different kinds of porridge for breakfast and an egg and a variety of meat and veggies for lunch. Don't understand why all the Government food dished out is not standard

South Africa is one of the few countries in the world where one can receive treatment for under $3 but this kind of treatment i don't ne ed and i am not the only patient who complains about abuse and assault. Most of the African patients and there families live in the sticks cks so to whom will they report all this to. I love South Africa and South Africans but this is really the pits.

I noticed many of the patients at the Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital take a drug called Risperidone, a horrible piece of work where sixty sixty percentage of males suffer from erectile dysfunction when taking Risperidone, i wonder if the "mental patients" (that's what they are referred to as by the staff) actually have a choice whether to have erectile dysfunction or not, i bet my bottom dollar and it's a fact that no patient is informed of the side effects of the medication they are taking, why should us "mental patients" be informed or have the right to know of side effects, we are the scum of the earth, maybe Government Psychiatry gets it's "info manual" from the holocast. I once researched Risperidone for days on the internet in 2012 and wow what negative reviews. Some of the patients are so spaced out on prescription drugs they sleep most of the day to keep them calm.

During my stay at the Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital, i observed the finer art of theft, assualt by LK Security Solutions on patients, i pity the guy (patient) whom escaped from the ajoining ward, his screams could be heard miles away whilst the patient was beat with batons. No respect for patients, i once informed one of the staff members that the burglar bars put up on one window had jaggered steel edges and could hurt someone so the staff member said "let them". There is no outbound communication to the outside world for most of the African patients, if one asks a nurse to send an sms the answer is "battery flat" or "no airtime, mean while the nurses sit using WhatsApp the whole day. Ok it would be a bit heavy if 45 patients used the nurses phone, even though i offered to pay, the nurses could at least answer truthfully and inform the patients that cell phone calls are allowed. The nurses are a bunch of liars and have the cheek to pray twice a day with the patients. If a patient ask a nurse for something the answer is more likely to be "kusasa" (tomorrow). I can understand spending twelve hours a day for five days shift with psychotic patients is a bit taxing but the staff nurses opted for this job and i think that the patients at the Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital could be treated with dignity and more humanly.

I learned a whole lot of new Zulu words at Umzimkulu psych hospital like, ingquza, masende and bhebha to the disapproval of Jabu.

Some of the African patients where so desperate for tobacco they would collect the tiny pieces of loose tobacco from the floor and when there was enough tobacco they would roll a "joint" in a manner of speaking.

Don't try this at home or anywhere else and i do not condone this but it seems that according to Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital, violence is cool and condoned. As long as you sort out your frustrations with batons, polycop plumbers pipe, high heels, a strawberry jam sandwich and mind bending, muscle spasm causing injections.

I am upset now very upset. How on earth could Dr Ndlovo from G.J. Crookes transfer me from a cage full of pigeons to a cage full of vipers and ruin me financially. If i had been discharged from G.J. Crookes i would have been able to make up my payments. Surely if a patient is so psychotic they would be transferred on day one or two. Yet according to my mother: a security guard impersonating a principal psychiatrist, informed my mother that "they need the beds" which is also not true as there where two empty beds in the ward and G2 is also used for psych patients.

I must have been in a very bad state of mind as one night sister took my blood pressure nightly and allowed me to take her blood pressure on numerous occasions. Imagine that some cleaners and staff nurses allowed me to choose and play songs on there smart phones. Ok i hope this paragraph does not get anyone into trouble but i watched the most fantastic game of soccer with the night staff and security guards one Wednesday night. I stand corrected i was at G.J. Crookes longer than 72 hours as i now remember there was no soccer game the next Wednesday for some or other reason whilst i was at G.J. Crookes Hospital.

Doc e, arranged that i do not have to go back to the Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital, thank you very much for that.

I prefer and so do all of us, a restroom like in the pic above and not a restroom overflowing with shit and piss

I acquired two "bodyguards" in Male block one after my tobacco was stolen off my person whilst i was lying down in the morning sunshine on the tiled section of the courtyard floor. My one bodyguard and friend (John was his name) even himself mentioned that it was stressful holding onto my tobacco and rolling "joints" for me. The other bodyguard had been in the ward for many months and the other African patients where a bit wary of him. He would make sure that the other African patients stayed away whilst the tobacco was rolled mostly using my own purchased paper or if that ran out then newspaper. Best to choose the meanest mother fuckers as your friends in a place like this, which works on occassions.

Talking about "joints", marijuana is freely available at the Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital. I found this out when a patient asked me for a light and my bodyguard and best African friend John, told me not to smoke from that "joint" as it contains marijuana. Mary jane is supposed to induce paranoia in mentally ill patients so WTF.

Quite educating this business. I found out that one can crush and smoke pain killers as another room mate who slept opposite me did. Maybe that's why some nurses refused to hand out pain killers without a Doctor's script. So if you have a splitting headache in the afternoon one might obtain some pain killers the next day if lucky. I stay away from pain killers if possible but with my buttock injury from being assaulted and my two week summer cold i was popping pain killer's like crazy. Not thanks to the female Doctor whom i requested pain killers at the nurses station and she did not write them up the first time.

Come to think of it my best African friend went on his knees to talk to this female Doctor at the nurses station. Not that they where married but i was under the impression that Zulu girls serve food on their knees to their husbands. And he was nowhere near psychotic.

To get back to the drugs story, on one occasion i received a phone call in the injection room and there was this newly admitted coloured chap trying to open the medicine trolly. (He also received the customery tobacco treatment on arrival.) A few days later he and the guy who smoked the pain killers managed to steal some drugs from the medicine trolly. They received the baton treatment for their troubles. The assaulting of patients continues to baffle me as i was under the impression that violence in psychiatry was meant to be discouraged (never mind frowned upon) and guys that where in private and most state hospitals, that i have communicated with where never assaulted. Thank God i never witnessed any assault the first time i was admitted at G.J. Crookes Hospital unlike Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital.

On my move from one section to the next at Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital i lost my mountain view bed but was soon invited to another ward closer to the windows by two patients, the alterior motives you guess it, tobacco. The first ward or section i was in (gets a bit confusing this ward business) but anyhow i had a lovely view of the foothills of the Underberg mountains but knew this stunning view of the mountains and a village which was part of Umzimkulu village would not last and soon became quite mudane. Being an outdoor lover i never dreamt magestic mountains could become so boring.

So much agro and fustration as the patients where not allowed out the wards for walks. In any of the three wards bar one occasion. Maybe the patients would try to escape, wow why on earth would anyone want to escape. The one occasion sixteen patients where allowed to go for a walk outside was for a haircut. I remember that day very well. I was sitting in the courtyard and a female nurse starting picking out patients for a haircut. She called me out and i said no thanks. I did not want my hair to be cut bald as some Africans cut their hair. My blood really boiled and when the sixteen patients where about to get on the way for hair cuts i wanted to go with to have my beard trimmed off. The female nurse then changed her mind and said that i could not go at all. Talk about being petty.

I might be making a big issue of the tobacco story but that was the only occupational therapy there was at the Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital and when the patients received their monthly disability grant or visitors brought tobacco the patients who smoked, smoked non stop almost till all their tobacco was finished in two or three days. Might as well make a "meal" of it when you have it. I was rather more cautious and tried to ration my tobacco till Jabu came to visit me. For every one hundred grams of tobacco i received, i recon i smoked fifty grams and the other fifty grams was for "bodyguard" and sharing of tobacco fees.

Ninety five percent of the patients smoked and a large percentage never smoked before but only smoked at the Umzimkulu to pass the time and have something to occupy themselves with, the youngsters under 28 years of age or so would hide there smoking habits from their mothers or family when they came to visit them.

The patients make their own beds in the morning's. The nurses then come along and make the beds again. I found out only one blanket per patient is permitted during the summer months. Allegedly June and July the coldest months, really cold in the Underberg as I found out first hand on some of our vacations in the Drakensberg, two blankets are allowed. One or two degrees celsius (34 F) outside in winter at late night and early morning it gets really cold without a heater in the bedroom wherever you might be in a hotel or the Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital. The patients ward windows are not triple glazed but thinking back the glass is 15mm thick so that must help with the cold a wee bit.

How dare the Sisters, nurses (male and female) and security guards force the patients to pray and dance around in a circle singing Zulu religious songs after the way some of them treat the patients, two faced religious attitudes, i am sure it is written somewhere: abuse, assault, degrade ones dignity, humiliate and tomorrow you will be forgiven. I took no part in these prayer "meeting's" other than i was forced to stand. And my last morning at Umzimkulu Psych Hospital i did go around in circles chanting something at the insistence of one of the nurses just to please her and not have hassles on my last day.

Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name? And then will I declare to them, I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. Matthew 7:21-23

I used to be quite a self religious person but i have lost my respect for God due to this hospital stay and psychological after effects, really too much is too much.

I think Stephen Fry is correct with his viewpoint on God. ''The quicker you forget about Him, your life will change for the better"

This is the final nail in the coffin between God and i and it really hurts me to loose faith after so many years, but this is really it, i have had enough. What i have gone through in my life is a fraction of some of the pain and suffering others go or have gone through but i have had enough of this blatant two faced religious attitudes.

And it gets even better, on the 18th Febuary 2015, another anniversary, my birthday, my

The reason i was sent from G.J. Crookes Hospital in Scottburgh, South Africa to the Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital was that Doctor Ndlovo filled up a bath and gave me a teaspoon, cup and bucket and asked me to empty the bath, i choose the bucket, she asked me whether i would like a bed by the window in the Umzimkulu Psychiatric Hospital as normal people would pull the bath plug. Just thought i would ad a bit of humour, this did not actually happen but one never knows, many things said in jest could be true.

Crimes against humanity, as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum, "are particularly odious offences in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of human beings, they really fucked me up at Umzimkulu.

Electronically and chemically hacking the human mind