WHEN Nicola, a young woman with a history of mental illness, checked herself into hospital after a period of depression last year, she found the sexual harassment she suffered so traumatic that she left the unit.

Such was the impact on a woman who had suffered sexual abuse as a child and a later rape that she refused to return when her condition lapsed again this year. In the absence of adequate care, she ended up attempting suicide.

Nicola, who is in her late 20s and from East London, suffered repeated experiences of harassment on a ward supposed to offer the security of single rooms and separate bathing facilities. She witnessed men lying naked on their beds and others, under heavy sedation, at the dinner table with their trousers undone. One patient dropped his trousers in front of her.

“I normally go voluntarily [to hospital] when I feel my mental health deteriorating, because I believe in looking after myself,” she said. “But after 11 days I had to walk out.”

Nicola, whose name has been changed, said that the single-sex arrangement applied to a corridor for men and one for women, with shared communal facilities. But she became aware that the men were staying around her after the door opposite her was left open, where she saw a man lying naked on the bed. A few days later she was confronted by another individual while playing a game of Scrabble in one of the communal rooms.

“He walked in, dropped his trousers in front of me and just stood there,” she said. “I just ran out and went back to my room.

“I think that because I had been on previous [mental health] wards [the staff] expected me to be more tolerant about these incidents.

“It was just outrageous. I have been into hospital five times since I was 21, but in the past five years I think the experience has got much worse.”

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