My name is Nia, I’m 20 years old, and in the early hours of February 28th 2022 I was admitted to Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn, New York. I was initially treated in the Emergency Room. A day later I was transferred to Woodhull’s Adult Psychiatric Unit where I experienced and witnessed gross and egregious neglect at the hands of the Woodhull staff and system.

Everything I state here I am 100% certain can be corroborated by hospital cameras on the unit. 

Woodhull History:

• Through public articles found from a simple Google search alone I was able to find 5 instances of deaths at Woodhull that could be tied back to neglect and incompetence--two of which are children under the age of 10. All of which were in completely different departments of the hospital, disconnected from the psychiatric unit entirely. This is a Hospital wide issue. 
  • RIP Sha-Asia Washington (2020)
    RIP Janie Marshall (2020)
    RIP A’Mari Muriel-Johnson (2018)
    RIP Crystal Clemens (2017)
    RIP Anna Gloria River (1998)
• On the Woodhull Yelp page you can find a collection of one star reviews dating years back that outline similar experiences to mine as well as poor treatment outside of the psychiatric unit. This is a community issue. 
• In June 1998 journalist Kevin Heldman published ‘7 ½ Days’, an investigative journalism piece where he intentionally got himself admitted to Woodhull Psychiatric Hospital as a means of “documenting psychiatric care in one of New York’s poorest neighborhoods”. What he experienced, witnessed, and wrote about 24 years ago is harrowingly similar to my own experiences despite taking place 3 years before I was even born. This is an issue that’s been going on for decades. 

Sexual Harassment: 

• For the duration of my visit a male patient 20 years my senior attempted to bring me gifts, compliment me, and ask if I wanted to play checkers or watch a movie with him. This I could manage. If nothing else, I can handle men with boundary issues. I became uneasy when he started pacing past my door at night. One night after he’d asked me to watch a movie with him I dodged him and pretended to go to sleep. My door was closed, my lights were off and I heard three distinct knocks seconds apart as he paced by repeatedly. My roommate got up to open the door. He left after that. No staff intervened. 
• On 3/5 I saw a male patient exiting the room attached to mine after presumably stealing a sheet off the bed–he was constructing a garment for himself out of sheets. The rooms at Woodhull are separated by gender so seeing a man walk out of one of the women's rooms was instantly a red flag. I was the only one who saw it. I was distressed because earlier that day at lunch that same patient had asked to have sex with me. I looked around in disbelief, but there was no staff in the area. I reported it to a Patient Assistant who asked me to identify the man. I didn’t feel comfortable but I did give a physical description and say he was draped in sheets. No staff made any effort to confront or address him in any way. The Head Nurse said in response to my distress, "You are very very sick and you do not have as much insight as you think you do". 
• After this incident, the staff put me on a “1 to 1” which essentially meant someone was to be watching me at all moments. Door couldn’t be closed. I later asked for documentation of my “1 to 1” as it became clear no one watching had any idea what they were watching for and allowed uncomfortable instances to occur--one of the aforementioned patients paced back and forth outside my open door while my 1 to 1 just looked off cluelessly with no interjection. They were never able to provide any documentation. 

Protocol Enforcement:

• After I reported that I'd been sexually harassed, the unit put me on something called "1 to1" Which meant my door would stay open and there'd be a sitter watching me 24/7. My door was closed within the first 3 hours of my “1 to 1”. All the rotating "1 to 1"'s seemed to have different understandings of the protocol. Some said 6 feet, others outside the door. After I'd reported the incident at lunch The Head Nurse brought down his supervisor who alerted me someone would be with me 24/7 and my door would stay open. The conversation ended with her walking outside my door to greet the group of med students visiting the unit who had overheard the entire conversation–”Are you sure you want to be doctors?” she said jokingly. Everyone laughed. 
• The “1 to 1” watchers switched out every few hours. At 5AM on 3/6 I woke up to my “1 to 1” playing Bubble Pop on her phone. I confronted her and she said her phone was dead. On 3/6 around Noon a different “1 to 1” loudly watched football on his phone outside my door while my roommate and I tried to sleep. When he got up to switch and began chatting with the Nurse trading positions with him I ran to the bathroom and hid behind a thin (no more than 10 inch wall) that barely blocked the toilet. It took four minutes and four separate nurses to find me. Mind you, there is no way to exit the room without being seen. I heard one of the Medical Assistants go “what the fuck?” as she walked by the bathroom. It wasn’t until the Head Nurse was called in that he thought to actually step into the bathroom. 
  

Facilities & Care: 

• Doctor ordered that I have my bandages changed every 24 hours at 10AM. Over the weekend my bandages were left unchanged for approximately 54 hours. 
• The Nurses station was an enclosed room with a plexi glass front that had a small slit in the bottom center to pass items through. Countless times I saw people banging on the glass repeatedly to get the Nurse’s attention. This was one of many methods. You could stand patiently, be polite, repeatedly call out “Miss” or “Nurse”, or try the banging (typically the most effective) but at times you just have to give up. I saw this in instances of people trying to get shower supplies, tampons, toothbrushes, cups of juice or water etc. Basic necessities.
• On 3/5 I saw a pregnant patient ask for an extra Ensure because she was diabetic. The Nurses said there was nothing they could do. I gave her a patch of sour patch kids my Mom had brought me.

Medication:

• This was an issue early on in my stay before I really understood the neglect and incompetence that is commonplace at Woodhull. As I mentioned, I was admitted with 26 stitches in my left arm. From 2/28-3/4 I was on Tylenol for the pain. On 3/3 I told 3 Nurses and 1 Doctor it wasn’t enough. On 3/4 I directly approach the Unit Chief and she takes me to the Medical Physician on unit who prescribed me Naproxin, a stronger pain medicine that I was to receive every 12 hours. I ask if she’s heard anything about my requests and she said that she “had no idea until you walked through the door”. I did not get the Naproxen every 12 hours. Twice it was 10 hours, once it was 14, once it was completely unavailable because there was one person working in the hospital pharmacy and they hadn’t sent it out yet, once my roommate and I were woken up at 2AM for me to take it, once it was skipped entirely and later Nurses would alert me that they’d marked the medication as “refused” though I’d never been offered it. 

Contraband:

• On 3/3 a friend came to visit me. The next day over the payphone he alerted me that he’d witnessed another guest pass a patient nail clippers under the table. I have a photo from this day because my friend’s phone was never confiscated and we took a selfie. The inconsistencies with what was able to be brought in by guests, what was checked, and what was taken away continued for the entirety of my stay. I heard tell of guests who were left in the waiting room for hours because someone "forgot to come get them".
• On 3/4 I walked past two maintenance workers with a cart of tools in the common area of the unit. There was a lot of stuff on the cart but from what I remember specifically I saw a power drill and nails. They were coming in to fix a frame from what I overheard. I walked past them and the tools were 100% within my arms reach. This was feet away from where there’d been a major physical altercation the day before. I asked one of the construction workers if this was a liability. He shrugged me off. I asked a Nurse the same question after they’d left. She said she never saw them. 
• On 3/7 a patient I’d become friends with who’d had repeated physical altercations with another patient showed me a comb she’d sharpened the edges of. She told me she intended to slit the other patient's throat if she bothered her again. I told her not to and then subtly I told my “1 to1” that she had a comb she was intending to use as a weapon. It didn’t matter though because 30 minutes later the patient with the comb told a Medical Assistant that she had a good relationship with the same thing she had told me. Next to me, she combed another patient's hair out in the common space with the comb and gave him bantu knots. The comb was never confiscated. 

I am calling on and demanding the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Justice Center for the Protection of People with Special Needs, and the State of New York to do a thorough evaluation of Woodhull Hospital and its ability to meet the needs of the community it claims to serve. This is one hospital under a very broken system but it’s a start. I am lucky enough to have the resources, platform, and community support to shed light on and cope with my experience at Woodhull but other patients at Woodhull do not have those same privileges and are being ignored and subsequently abused by this system. If you or someone you care about has been affected by mental illness please consider signing as we push for safe, clean, cognizant treatment for people with mental illnesses and special needs. Our communities deserve better. People with disabilities deserve better. This is not okay and we should not be okay with it a moment longer.

If you have a story to share about your experience with Woodhull Hospital please consider using #InvestigateWoodhull