...when you are made to feel you've done the wrong thing.

Last night we were ushers at a local venue (I will not disclose the venue). A gentleman who was dishevelled and in what we perceived to be an acute psychotic state was seated at the back of this venue talking to himself loudly. He was not making a lot of sense and was using expressions that implied violence (I won't quote for fear of spam) to himself/property/others - it was difficult to understand him and he was unable to give us his name or contacts. We made the decision to call an ambulance as we felt that he needed medical/psychiatric attention. The ambulance sent two policemen instead. (I think this was an OH&S issue/mental health act policy - not sure). The gentleman decided he would move to the front of the venue thus coming into full view of a number of people. The police professionally and gently escorted him outside and then took him to a facility that could provide him with appropriate medical/psychiatric assistance. As ushers, we were approached by two people outraged by what we had done in terms of calling for assistance - they stated they would have been happy to have had the gentleman stay implying we should have been more tolerant. They clearly misunderstood that we had called the ambulance out of concern for the gentleman's condition and welfare of others should he become aggressive (implied by some of his speech). The irony was that only two people had bothered to speak to him, most people steered a very wide arc away from him. They therefore had no way of assessing the state of the gentleman's mental state and what the issues were.
The other irony was that at the end of the performance, the audience would have left leaving the workers at the venue to ask the gentleman to leave in order to lock up - where would he have gone in that state? To roam the streets at night exposing him to more harm to self or to others... who knows? If we had waited until the performance had ended and then called an ambulance (they probably still would have sent the police), would that have appeased the people who were outraged? We left the venue (and we are volunteers with no procedures to follow in these circumstances) feeling we were entirely in the wrong.

I should point out that we are in no way strangers to mental health issues having a close relative who has had first episode psychosis. I wonder if the attitude would have been different if the gentleman had been a younger person - would they have let a young person alone to fend for themselves or would assistance have been called? As a parent, I know what my preference would have been particularly if the child had been in such a state rendering them incapable of telling people their name and next of kin.

Comments

[julia]

Ones feels for those sufferers of mental illness and it is confronting. Forgive me for duplicating my comments in mistake and hope this one will turn out ok.

[kyte]

You did exactly the right thing, and yes, the ambulance will always call the Police if there are any issues which may involve potential violence. Those who criticised should have kept quiet.

[jenny]

Thanks Kyte - your comment is greatly appreciated!!