A man who spent decades fighting the NHS to get his wife access to mental health support was told by emergency department staff she was a low priority, despite her being so unwell she became catatonic.
Steve, 63, from Hertfordshire, has supported his wife who has schizophrenia for 30 years and recalls the “horrific” lack of care they experienced when she was at her worst.
Despite her becoming catatonic and posing a danger to herself, he said he was repeatedly told that she was not a priority in the emergency room and that there were no available psychiatric beds.
His comments come as a poll of more than 600 people by the charity Rethink Mental Illness revealed that two-fifths of people with mental illness have been told they are too sick to be cared for by the NHS.
The charity, which supports people suffering from severe mental illness, also found that 35% of sufferers believe their symptoms are too severe to help.
Have you had a similar experience? Email rebecca.thomas@independent.co.uk

Despite the cost of living crisis, 35 percent of respondents are turning to private mental health support, the Rethink survey found.
Independent It has published several articles exposing the scale of the crisis facing mental health services, with some patients waiting more than five days in emergency departments and patients waiting years for treatment in the community.
talk IndependentSteve, who wants to remain anonymous, has seen his wife committed to a psychiatric hospital three times in the past 10 years.
Of the second incident, he said: “She again became catatonic. This came after around three to four weeks of a gradual deterioration in her health at home. The crisis team were there every day but her condition continued to worsen.”
“She began to self-harm and by 8pm she arrived at the emergency department and needed to be taken to hospital. However, by 6am the following day she still had not been seen by a doctor or had her mental health assessed.”
“My wife was in a catatonic state and had no control over her body… At 6.30pm, we received a call from the psychiatrist saying that you are a low priority and the doctor cannot attend to you.
“At that point, because I was taking care of my wife in the emergency room, I realized the only way I could make her a priority was to leave her alone. So I had to leave. I had to leave my wife behind. I can’t even describe how painful and difficult that was.”
According to the Rethink survey, a quarter of those surveyed said they lacked follow-up care, and 35 percent said the support they received was too brief to be effective.
Mark Winstanley, chief executive of Rethink Mental Illness, said: “This research reveals the real consequences of mental health services failing to have enough resources to meet demand – people losing their jobs, going into crisis, contacting emergency services or attempting suicide because they have waited too long for treatment.”
“There has been a clear commitment from NHS leaders to improve access to care, with significant funding pumped into the system.
“There should be no sense of fatalism or shrugging at the lack of access to support and treatment for people with mental illness.”
Steve, a patient representative at Rethink, said: Independent He recently had to threaten to divorce his wife just to stop the psychiatric hospital from releasing her without the proper support and care in place.
He said: “The only way I could get my wife the help she needed and protect myself was to aggressively tell the hospital that if they insisted on sending her home I would have no choice but to get a divorce.”
“I was devastated. It was bad enough to see my wife go through this but then you add to that the pressure the health service is putting on my shoulders and I feel powerless. I’m devastated.”
“I have absolutely no trust in the health service to look after me as a carer. I have felt completely abandoned through all of this.”
She added: “We simply don’t have the resources to deal with this issue. Our mental health system is stretched to its limits and can only deal with the immediate crisis.”
“So really it doesn’t matter how sick you are. It doesn’t matter how delusional you are. The last five or six times my wife has been admitted to hospital and needed to be assessed mentally, I was told there weren’t any beds available in Hertfordshire.”