Dear Dr Claire Dillon – Health Inequalities and PTSD Care: The Fallout and a Call for Accountability

by | Oct 14, 2024 | Institutional Racism | 0 comments

Dear Paul Gibbs,

Can you please explain why you decided to take almost 7 weeks to reply to my email that I sent to you on the 25th of October 2023?

Please can you also give me examples of other instances in which you have waited over 6 weeks to reply to a patient that has made such serious allegations against so many different senior doctors and medical practitioners of West London NHS which covered a 6-year period and you just decided not to bother to reply to?

And then only reply once I send a follow-up email to you and Sam Beamish?

Please give examples, I do not want to feel like I am getting special treatment.

People could interpret your lack of communication and your “Computer says NO” copy-and-paste email responses as more evidence of West London NHS’s Institutional Racism and Medical Negligence.

You must have strategically thought this through to some point.

As I told Sam Beamish yesterday…

“Dear Sam,

Sorry to trouble you by contacting you directly via your personal email address.

However, I have had radio silence since sending your PALS Team the details of my complaint against West London NHS which was dated 25th October.

Both the Metropolitan Police and IPCC have responded to the same email. However, I don’t want to start detailing the level of Institutional Racism and Medical Negligence of West London NHS and the Metropolitan Police until I receive the appropriate psychiatric support.

Since sending the email on October 25th, I have almost been admitted to the hospital twice. Once for being suicidal triggered by this writing process and secondly for post-cancer treatment complications which were also caused by the psychological triggers from PTSD.

After all the major operations and damage from the radiotherapy, my colon doesn’t function properly and shuts down when I am emotionally unstable and triggered by PTSD.

My vitals have also been low, last week I almost collapsed in my kitchen. As a result, I have had to have a series of blood tests as a precaution.

Please can you get back to me and let me know what is going on? I understand I have made very serious allegations but as I hope you will see. I have all the records (or more accurately you have all the medical records) to back up my allegations.

I am tagging the Police and the IPPC in this email so that they have a record of our communications and are essentially in the loop.

Finally, just in case my last email dated Oct 25th somehow got lost in the PALS Team ether I will copy it to the end of this email.

By the way, I like your Twitter feed, we have similar tastes in art. I am a big fan of Anime and Manga, I lived in Kyoto for 2 years.

Anyway, Merry Christmas Sam.

Kind Regards,

Sam.”

… I have had serious post Cancer treatment and PTSD-related health issues since sending you the email on October 25th.

Why did you wait 7 weeks to reply to such serious allegations of Institutional Racism and Medical Negligence?

You could have done your Little Britain “Computer Says No” copy-and-paste email response 7 weeks ago, Why did you wait until yesterday to send that particular response?

The only logical answer that I can come up with is that you were genuinely stalling because you don’t know how to disprove the serious allegations of institutional racism and systemic medical negligence and are fearful of the fallout.

I’m obviously guessing here because of your radio silence, but were you hoping I would give up because of my cancer-related issues or I commit suicide?

Either way, that is an insane public relations and media strategy. I am not sure how that helps the community you serve, plus that’s a lot of emotional baggage to carry around with you personally.

Can you provide any evidence that you have made any contact with NHS Maudsley regarding my specific request? Your statement regarding NHS Trust care being dependent on your location is incorrect. It is kind of crazy you’re emailing me false information.

How do I know what you stated is false? Well, because of the extreme level of trauma I endured during the 24 hours of search and rescue on the island during the tsunami and then the 5 years of systemic failures of West London NHS mental health care, I was fast-tracked and treated by NHS Maudsley for PTSD, all whilst I was living in the borough of Hounslow. A significant part of my PTSD treatment at NHS Maudsley was dealing with trauma caused by 5 years of West London’s NHS’s medically negligent care – We discussed my treatment or lack of it in detail.

Now that you are emailing information that I know from my own NHS care to be blatantly false. How is this impartial?

In one of our initial email communications, you stated that you were independent from the NHS and I should not worry about your impartiality.

Therefore, your organization’s objective would be to root out systemic problems such as Institutional Racism and medically negligent practitioners to improve West London NHS patients’ access to medical care for the entire community.

Is there any Publicly accessible Data to show that the PALS Service has any track record of impartiality in dealing with such serious systemic Trust-wide issues? That span over a 5-to-6-year period, which involved over 50 medical practitioners, 3 West London NHS Hospitals, and their medically negligent mental health care was referenced in a BBC World Service Podcast.

Finally, with regards to the information you requested. I have given you all the information I can. Apart from one or two addresses, any additional information including my NHS Number, which I have not provided would only be accessible by referencing the 6 years of NHS medical records. I assumed this was self-evident from the email dated October 25th.

Therefore, it seems bizarre when you repeatedly send me your copy-and-paste responses, which would be appropriate if my complaint was in reference to one or two specific dates.

But during the 6 years I refer to I had no physical illnesses. Every interaction with the NHS was related to post-trauma mental health issues. There must be close to 100, maybe more of specific dates and interactions, that I think you may be referring to with probably 50 different West London Medical Practitioners.

As I said in my initial email to you my complaint is regarding systemic institutional racism and medically negligent practices which cover the entire 5 to 6-year period. Which is why when you repeatedly send your copy-and-paste responses, I don’t think you have grasped the gravity of what I am sharing with you.

Can I ask, have you actually bothered to listen to the BBC podcast which references my story of traumatic experience in the tsunami, the medically negligent NHS care for 5 years, and then the eventual NHS Maudsley PTSD treatment which saved my life?

If you were taking this seriously you would not have waited 7 weeks just to repeat your Little Britain ‘Computer Says No’ routine.

You could have explained months ago that the PALS service does not have direct access to my records unless you request your entire medical history and then share it with the PALS team. Or maybe I have to sign a special disclosure to give you access to 6 years of medical records. Or anything that may actually be useful to expedite this process.

However, instead, it seems like you just decided to stall and not to bother to even respond to the email dated Oct 25th. Responding 7 weeks later, only after I sent a follow-up email to you and Sam Beamish. And then incredibly you respond with another bizarre copy-and-paste request for information.

Finally, ending the email with information I know from my very own NHS PTSD treatment at NHS Maudsley to be blatantly false.

Seriously, what is going on?

Is it possible that I can deal with your supervisor or whomever you are accountable to? If I weren’t suicidal, this would almost be comical. I am not sure you have the public relations skills to be dealing with this.

In the several months of our communications. I don’t think you have personally written more than one paragraph to me in any one email.

It’s weird, it is like your email response would be the same if I were some lunatic complaining about the length of time I had to wait to be seen at my GP surgery.

Or at the very least, could I deal with Sam Beamish instead of you? I have read Sam’s work he is a good writer.

Your repeated copy-and-paste communication style comes across as rather inhumane when dealing with a mentally vulnerable trauma and cancer survivor who is constantly in and out of hospital.

I am not sure how much training you have had to be dealing with the mentally vulnerable, I would suggest you request some more.

Kind Regards,

Sam

Written by Sam Nilaweera

Sam Nilaweera is a London-born advocate, writer, and former high school teacher deeply shaped by his multicultural upbringing. After earning an Economics degree from Liverpool University, Sam spent transformative years in Japan with the JET program. In 2004, his life changed dramatically after surviving the Boxing Day tsunami, leading to years of untreated PTSD. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Sam faced a new challenge with stage 3 cancer, spending a year in isolation due to complications. With professional support from Dr. Jennifer Wild at Oxford University, Sam navigated his PTSD recovery journey. He now channels his experiences into PTSDJedi.com, where he shares stories, resources, and insights, creating a community centered on trauma recovery and resilience. Committed to mental health advocacy, Sam empowers others through collaborative projects, outreach, and his blog, breaking the silence around PTSD and fostering global support for recovery.

Related Posts

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site is registered on wpml.org as a development site. Switch to a production site key to remove this banner.