Appalling conditions in the Narcosis Room

The Narcosis Room itself was far too small for the six beds that it held and they were crammed together with just enough room for a chair placed between each bed. This goes against every principle of nursing since it would have permitted any infection to be carried from one patient to another very easily. The beds were single divans, the kind that you have at home and unlike standard NHS beds. The privacy and dignity of patients was never considered. Patients had to use bedpans and these were placed on the chairs in the narrow spaces between beds. There was an appalling stench in the room and this has been commented on by doctors and nurses who worked in Narcosis. One nurse recalled going around regularly with air freshener spray. Because patients were virtually immobile, full of drugs and not eating properly, they were prone to severe constipation,“impacted faeces high up and paralytic ileus” were some of the known dangers of Narcosis Treatment which Dr Sargant mentions in his textbook. To counter this, Narcosis patients were given enemas very frequently, some patients had them every day.

Enemas were given in the same small darkened room where Nightingale Nurses fed patients their meals. Despite the use of enemas Dr Sargant admitted that between 1964-1972 at least five patients had died whilst undergoing Narcosis, all of bowel complications. It should be remembered that these five patients were being treated for a variety of serious mental illnesses, that they should have died of physical complications is unthinkable and these deaths should have been throughly investigated by the hospital authorities.