Medicine Time On Ward Five Poem by Joe Hughes
Medicine Time On Ward Five
It's medicine time on ward five
As the patients all join in a queue.
Mental illness - the spectre
Is no great respecter -
Of Mormon, Catholic or Jew!
Schizophrenia, bipolar, depression,
Largactil, Lithium, Tofranil.
No matter what your obsession
Or other mental possession
We've an illness for each of those pills.
It's unlikely you'll get psychotherapy.
CBT takes a year to arrange.
So as we fill you with pills
For each of your ills
Your head will feel ever so strange.
With the whole of the drug making industry
At each psychiatrist's instant command.
We'll inject, tabletise you
Maybe even hyponotise you
Until you're unable to stand.
It's medicine time on ward five
With a life etched on each patient's face.
For they know - as I do -
But now I'm telling you
The drug companies have all won the race!
Joe, this one must have hurt to write it. It has been written in the best way possible- -realism with just the right touch of bitter and sorrow and anger. I don't see these drug abuses being replaced with psychiatric help of the finest- -it would require more money spent on hiring more staff and more outstanding staff and less on getting by with a skeleton staff by supporting the pill industry. Very important write, Gary, and done so perfectly. 10
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4/26/2024 12:48:54 PM # 1.0.0.1119
Thank you Susan. There continues to be this quandary with the power of the drug industry and the medicalisation of psychiatry being to blame. As we know, it is now a scientific fact that so much more can be achieved, even with those service users who have enduring mental health problems, if the appropriate talk therapy was to be used. I will never stop highlighted the plight of these people whenever I can. Regards and thanks.