Bipolar family member hospitalized - release forms

I was recently thinking about the first time my husband was hospitlaized. I am still upset/bitter about the way the hospital handled it.

He was admitted for evaluation into the general psych. ward on a Thursday evening. On Friday, he called me to let me know that he had been moved to the intensive care psych. ward, no visitors allowed. He didn't remember what had happened to have him moved.

No one from the hospital contacted me. When I called to ask what was going on, nobody would tell me because of privacy laws. They never bothered to tell me that I needed to get my husband to sign a release form to share information.

It went on until Moday, when my sister (a nurse) finally told me about the form.

I just wanted to let everyone else know about the form. Knowing would have saved me 3 days of torture.

When my wife was hospitalized the first time, she was extremely depressed and suacidal, the local hospital that we called just told us they were full up, don't bring her here! Totally bewildered... We called an old family friend that is a psych ward councelor and ask for help. This was the middle of the night, he met us at his hospital and had most of the paperwork done by the time we got there. He was sitting at the front door waiting for us to arrive. He lived 15 min from there we lived 1 1/2 hours away (no it did not take me near that long to get there!) We still see his family on a regular basis and are so thankful to have them in our lives. Big thanks to Father Ken (yes he is a priest), a dear friend. He arranged for me to visit her beyond normal hours due to my work schedule at the time. I drove 1 1/2 hour each way every day she was there (about a month), would again in a heart beat.

I guess there are ins and outs to the visitation paperwork. Everyone but me has been locked out from seeing her a couple of times. Specifically her family, and I am not going to discuss that today.

I am sorry you ever had to endure the torture Terri. Thank you for posting this so others will not have to go through it hopefully.

God Bless you Terri