Appalling Conditions and Mistreatment at US Psych Ward Exposed by Undercover Reporter

Undercover journalist Alexander Reynolds goes inside hospital psychiatric wards to experience the life mentally ill patients endure at facilities across America.

Alexander – who previously went undercover as a prisoner at various U.S. institutions – says the two situations are not that different in many ways. “There are a lot of similarities between the prison experience and the hospitalization experience, which is akin to criminalization,” he said.

“For instance, a felony, an illness is reported, the mind police are called, you’re then arrested as a patient and taken into custody, then you are sentenced to therapy. And once you undergo that whole course of therapy, you’re then released back into the community and you solemnly swear to obey the law in the future.”

He reveals that most of his encounters with doctors in the hospital left a lot to be desired.

“I wasn’t particularly impressed by many of the doctors I met under the provisions of my Cigna insurance. A lot of them had roving contracts, so they would come into the facilities and do their bits, sign a few bits of paper and then move onto the next place. They were very brusque and their interpersonal communication skills were very poor.”

When asked how he got himself admitted to the psychiatric hospital for his undercover experiment, Alexander said it isn’t actually that hard. “All you do is you is you call 9-1-1 and say that you’re feeling suicidal, and the men in white coats will come and take you away – it’s really that ABC in the U.S.,” he said.

“First off, you’re heartbroken, you can’t believe the characters and the people you’ve met. I mean each one of them is a reflective ailment of modern America.” He recalled seeing “crazed war veterans” with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) who used to get in fights with the medical staff. “The nurses were actually making fun of the patients – poking fun at them,” he said.

“We’re as good as inmates. We don’t have shoe laces, we’re not allowed to have mouthwash, we’re not allowed to have belts, we’re not allowed to have lighters or matches,” he said, adding that this rule didn’t stop him from smuggling in a book of matches into a facility inside his running shoes.

He also shows a small knife he also smuggled in – which eventually got confiscated - as well as a larger razor blade that did not. “When they found out that I had all these things on me at the end when I revealed my own identity, they were apoplectic with rage.”

Alexander says that while he smuggled the dangerous items in to test what he could get though the system, there were times when he definitely feared or his safety.

“I was worried about going into that environment because each individual is unstable – you really don’t know what you’re going into or what you’re going to experience,” he said. “At least two-thirds of the people you’re going to be meeting in prison are going to be sane, it’s the other third you have to worry about.”

When asked about the treatment of patients by hospital staff, he said he generally didn’t find the environments conducive to healing and progress.

“Well they didn’t do a very good job because they were rude to all of the patients – all of the patients were treated like reform school children – it was quite something to see,” he revealed. “And I’ve got Cigna health insurance, I was expecting to be in a place that was a bit better. But I would rather take my chances as an indigent lunatic in the state mental hospital, which has an outrageous reputation, because it wouldn’t cost me so much.”

Watch the full interview for more, including the differences between American and British psychiatric facilities, and to hear about the cover story Alexander used to fool doctors and workers in the hospitals.