Halloween Special Blog

Just for something a a little different, I want to share with you an experience from 8 years ago. It is a true account of what happened and has not been embelished or added to in any way.

The local Mental Health team who were in the office next to ours, set up an out of hours service for people in the community in crisis. They were looking for people to man the 'evening' office who would patch through to professionals who were out and about and could call in on the person in crisis.

I agreed to do the Thursday and Friday evenings, as I could do with the extra cash, and as such, was office based with a different person on each of the evenings.

Anyway, about 4 weeks in to this arrangement, I was on one of the phones to someone who was having a few problems, while my colleague was on the other phone talking to an old dear who was struggling with being out of hospital and back in her own home.

We arranged for the Social Worker who was out and about to call in on both of them, job done, no problems. Next evening, on with a different colleague and a different Social Worker. Similar thing happens, only this time, I am making coffee when my colleague gets a very tearful call from said old lady again. Very upset and wanted to see the nice Social Worker again. My colleague explained it was someone else on duty but that we would get them to drop by. Again, problem solved.

The office was closed on the Saturday and Sunday and on the Monday morning I went in to Child Protection as per usual. Just before 11, I got a call from the manager of the Mental Health Team to ask if I could spare 15 minutes. I went through and in to a meeting with the two colleagues I had worked with and the two Social Workers who were out in the community, plus their boss.

We were asked about the phone calls and visits to the afore mentioned old lady and we each gave our version of the events on the Thursday and Friday night. All of us gave our accounts and apart from the second Social Worker admitting they stayed a little longer because they felt she deserved a bit more company, they were all pretty much the same.

The senior Social Worker explained that she had received a phone call from the old lady's daughter that morning, asking why her staff were going in to her mother's house on the Thursday and Friday evening as her mother had died on the Wednesday !!!

True story.