Undercover videos from 2017 show staff from same US owner assaulting young patients
A hospital owned by the private US firm at the centre of the shocking mental health abuse scandal revealed by BBC Panorama tonight was secretly filmed in 2017 showing its staff assaulting and abusing young mental health patients.
Whorlton Hall – the UK hospital at the centre of the UK allegations – is run by a company called Cygnet Health Care with headquarters in Kent.
But Cygnet is owned by a massive US healthcare company called Universal Health Services.
And in 2017, a UHS mental health unit was secretly filmed revealing similar abuse as that revealed tonight by Panorama in the UK:
Videos Show UHS Hospital Staff Assaulting Young Patients
UHS has been the subject of abuse accusations and investigations into its mental health care units in the US for years.
The abuse investigations include abuse, fraud, holding patients against their will, rape and deaths.
The question is:
Why, when these allegations were already known in the US, was UHS allowed to take over the care of vulnerable British patients in the UK?
Pride's Purge 
Just a complete guess but perhaps they just gave some people over here who happen to make those sort of decisions a whole load of money . . .
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The same kind of abuse is happening at St George’s Psychiatric hospital Stafford, I was sectioned there about 3 years ago, I have a diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome and PTSD, and the doctor who ran the ward I was on refused to read my diagnosis paperwork, I was kept in a locked ward for 3 weeks and that doctor said right at the start within the first 5 minutes that there was nothing wrong with me, he dismissed my previous diagnosed without even reading the paperwork. I was treated in an appalling way, I won’t hog this thread but there was a psychiatrist there pretending to be a patient, he act actually told us he was a psychiatrist, he went from one patient to another mocking us, saying vile things , when he found out I was a child trafficking survivor he kept coming over to me talking about explicit sexual acts, this was all done in full view of the rest of the staff and no attempt to stop his harassment until one of the other patients finally snapped and punched him. The ward was filthy and most people on the ward developed a skin disorder, and although they did a deep clean of the ward with disinfectant none of us were allowed access to a GP to find out what the skin disorder was.
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I asked the doctor if there was nothing wrong with me then I wanted to go home but he said I couldn’t because I was in for observation. Yet he told me there wasn’t anything wrong with me! I told him I had Asperger Syndrome, and he said I hadnt. Then I asked him if he was an expert in Asperger Syndrome and he said he didn’t know anything about Asperger Syndrome, so then I said “Well how do you know I haven’t got Asperger Syndrome then if you don’t know anything about it?” That’s the sort of way we were all treated. They let another patient keep harassing me, she kept coming over to me and pushing her face into mine and shouting at me so I ended up dropping my coffee one day when she suddenly did it and I screamed and ran off into my room. Then the entire staff room, I think six of them, they all came charging in my room pushing their face into mine and shouting angrily because I’d screamed and hid. And it was terrifying, I was terrified of them grabbing me, I knew they would all be on top of me and it was terrifying. They all barged into my room, the only place I could actually feel safe. It was a terrifying experience, and I’m quite an articulate person, it must be a thousand times worse for people less articulate
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I’ve been crying all night after watching Panorama. Thank God they made that program, thank God they did that secret filming! It’s brought it all back to me, and I’ve been trying and trying g and trying to complain but NHS England have made it virtually impossible,I made a written complaint and had a pathetic response back from them. They’ve left me totally unsupported now. I had my PIP taken away last year, I’m having to appeal tbat, it’s going to tribunal, I have been totally betrayed by my GP, I joined a community church based choir t o try to help myself but they let me be secretly filmed playing guitar and singing (apparently people with Asperger Syndrome can’t do those things ) and they’ve destroyed me, I don’t trust anyone now, I don’t go anywhere by myself any more and am desperately depressed and feel like my life is over because I feel like a prisoner now. Sorry for moaning.
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I’m sorry, I’ve come back again, I will make this my last comment as it’s not fair to hog this thread. I’ve just rung the BBC Helpline that they put out after the programme for people affected to ring and I’m disgusted. It’s not a helpline, all it is is a man reading out a list of organisations, most of who I’ve already contacted and who have totally betrayed me by not doing a single damned thing to help stop the abuse. The BBC need to rename that so called helpline, it isn’t a helpline it’s a gaslighting line.
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@zoompad Can I write about this?
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OMG! Of course you csn, oh please please please please do! I’m absolutely exhausted, depressed beyond belief, please please please do! I’ve got recordings of me being abused as well
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Why were they allowed? Because a Tory had money and a vested interest in the deal! – Easy
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Reblogged this on finolamoss and commented:
UHS own Danshell, owners of Panorama doc hospital, who bought Winterbourne view, Cygnet Group and Cambian group where ASD/LD live for life, in similar care under MCA. uhs ARE paid trillions by NHS England, whose head is one of their previous executives. This is globerlisation- extortion of public money and no service just abuse as no accountability .
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thanks for this. i feel the corporatisation of health care, especially for mental health + autism is incredibly dangerous. i don’t know if you have heard of Centre for Welfare Reform? It is a uk based network of professionals and it does a lot of articles and studies and reports about this kind of thing. https://www.centreforwelfarereform.org/
they did one recently about ATUs (assessment and treatment units) and it is very interesting, about how the environment isolates mentally ill/vulnerable people and exacerbates the challenges that people in crisis are going through, it is a really well put together report I feel, although being honest it is quite skim-readable. https://www.centreforwelfarereform.org/library/by-az/close-down-the-atus.html
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also, i just want to say, as an until recently undiagnosed autistic person, it petrifies me to see how disempowering mental health facilities can be, even at their “best”. you can be highly capable and intelligent but too many bad turns can land you trapped in a very difficult environment with restrictions on your freedom. It might just be my anxiety talking but I often feel very conscious and threatened by the existence of these institutions in society, for fear that it is too easy for people to be trapped in them. I knew in particular one woman who had been in institutions almost all her life, she was 30, really intelligent and interesting, but incredibly disempowered by the restrictions of mental health care; which punishes frustrated behaviour with more frustration. i should make this it’s own post at some point!
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Reblogged this on hilary77blog and commented:
It’s time our government was brought to book & criminal charges made against them.
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This is now 6 days old only a handful of papers covered it not one news station MSM trending slapping Farage Boris et al for taking money all but a few newspapers Not one TV news station has touched this. Sent it to all major news outlets and TV stations ignored it was tucked away on the Independent – No follow up
Big Tobacco funding conservatives to get rid of the NHS
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/big-tobacco-funding-conservatives-nhs-hancock-raab-davis-a8916561.html
Even the BMJ did an article again not a word https://www.bmj.com/content/365/bmj.l2164/rapid-responses
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its all to do with the monies backhanders given but sadly it isn’t about looking after people with the tories its the kickbacks
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Reblogged this on Worldtruth.
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Yes, it’s rotten from top to bottom. However, I’d like to point out the hospital is for people with learning disabilities, and not for mental health problems. Still doesn’t make this dreadful treatment right.
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I have first hand knowledge of the kind of abuses meted out in care homes in North East England. I complained. My life was turned upside down, wound up ruined, emotionally, financially, driven away in terror from everything and everyone I knew – left with no permanent home for nigh on 20 years. Every friend I had deserted me due to scapegoating, smears and pure fear on their parts, after all, if it could happen to me, it could happen to them if they defended me. The police and social services, while initially “interested” soon became interested only in shutting me up using every means at their disposal when all the paper evidence I had to offer them began to pile up. . I wept all the way through the Panorama programme, as I was also subjected to fear and torture and “creative restraint” techniques. If I had one piece of advice to give anyone contemplating reporting, I would say “Think carefully”, if you have balls of steel and plenty of rock solid support, you might just make it. If you have any vulnerability, i.e. a disability of disabled family member, they will tear you apart.
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Pingback: US owner of Panorama abuse hospital previously filmed and accused of similar patient abuse in 2017 | L8in
@zoompad , I have Carers Want Competence FB page. CAn you PM me, please? (https://www.facebook.com/carerswantcompetence/ )
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