The past two weeks have been gruelling for us as a family. We would like to thank the jury for the diligence and care they have taken. Morgan did not receive that care in the last few weeks of her life so she deserved it after her death.
Everything we feared about Morgan’s treatment under Sussex Partnership has been confirmed. She was systematically and repeatedly failed by those who were supposed to keep her safe. There was a total disregard for her history of trauma and that she was a young autistic mother.
The merry go round of admissions and discharges, with no planning at all and whilst being treated in such a punitive way, retraumatised Morgan and caused a complete and catastrophic deterioration in her mental state.
As a family, we tried to tell the professionals about Morgan and asked to work collaboratively with staff yet we were characterised as troublemakers.
In the height of her distress, Morgan harmed some of the staff involved in her care. She was devastated by this and wrote a letter of apology.
This was repeatedly dismissed by staff, including the consultant psychiatrist, as insincere and it led to staff withdrawing from providing her with therapeutic care, despite being responsible for keeping her safe. We are still struggling to understand how mental health professionals could have treated Morgan in this way.
It is with very heavy hearts that we listened to ward staff justify their treatment of Morgan and refused to reflect on, or accept, any failings in her care and indeed, we were told that staff felt they had provided “excellent care” to Morgan. That is clearly not the case. Until there is proper accountability and reflection, it is very difficult to have faith that there will be any meaningful change for people like Morgan.
