LETTER: A Voice from Inside Clarevue Hospital

A Voice from Inside Clarevue Hospital

Dear Editor,

I write not as an outsider but as someone who has walked the corridors of Clarevue Psychiatric Hospital for the past seven years. I have witnessed, endured, and survived realities that are both harrowing and unconscionable. What takes place within these walls is not merely administrative failure,  it is the slow, daily erosion of human dignity, both for patients entrusted to our care and for the staff who serve under conditions that would cripple even the strongest.

At the center of this decay lies a toxic culture perpetuated by those in positions of authority. The management, has fashioned an environment of hostility and favoritism. Rather than leading with integrity, they belittle colleagues, divide staff against one another, and treat professionals as though they were personal subordinates. It is not leadership; it is tyranny cloaked in uniform.

I recall vividly one afternoon in the hospital kitchen during the lunch service, where patients were present. Out of a fit of anger over personal grievances, a spoon was hurled at a fellow nurse. Letters of complaint were sent, but because of her close friendship with management, those complaints were quietly ignored. That single act  demeaning, violent, and reckless captured the climate we endure daily: a place where authority is abused, where respect is absent, and where staff are humiliated before the very patients we are meant to protect and heal.

One of my fellow colleagues, a maid who has been working here for fewer years than I have, confided something to me that shook me deeply. She spoke of a senior nurse who has given decades of her life to this institution, a woman who has carried herself with dignity and strength throughout the years. Yet, despite her long service, she has been constantly belittled and disrespected by management. The treatment is not occasional — it is deliberate and ongoing. To watch someone who has given so much be spoken down to, disregarded, and stripped of the respect she deserves is heartbreaking. It says everything about the kind of leadership that exists here, where loyalty and years of service count for nothing.

This toxic favoritism extends far beyond occasional cruelty. The management shields her allies, enabling misconduct while isolating and undermining those who refuse to bend to her will. It has created a fractured staff culture ; nurses pitted against one another while the institution itself collapses. Meanwhile, those of us who came to Clarevue with hopes of building a career in healthcare are left disillusioned, exploited, and stripped of our professional worth.

But this story is not solely about staff mistreatment. It is about patients — vulnerable men and women whose lives depend on us. Their conditions are already a heavy cross, but the neglect they face here makes their suffering unbearable. Meals are rationed to the level of prison rations, often reduced to beans and peas, and even those in pitiful portions. Supplies meant for patients’ pampers, basic equipment, and essential tools are frequently stolen, diverted into outside hands while residents are left with nothing. The very items required for their dignity and survival are treated as commodities for exploitation.

This is not the first time voices from Clarevue have cried out. Others before me have spoken, written, and begged for intervention. Yet the silence from those in power remains deafening. Promises are made “it’s with Cabinet,” “the budget is approved,” “soon you’ll see change” but nothing ever materializes. And in the meantime, patients die preventable deaths, investigations are buried, and those responsible for the rot remain comfortably in power.

To the Ministry of Health, to the Government of Antigua and Barbuda, and to all who have turned a blind eye: you know what is happening here. You have always known. And yet you do nothing. Mental health  both the care of patients and the wellbeing of staff is treated as expendable, a matter unworthy of urgency.

I refuse to remain silent any longer. The people of Antigua and Barbuda deserve to know that Clarevue Psychiatric Hospital is broken. Patients are neglected, staff are exploited, and leadership has poisoned the institution from within. To ignore this is to be complicit in cruelty.

I urge those with the power to act: dismantle this toxic system, hold those in authority accountable, and give Clarevue the urgent reform it so desperately needs. Until then, every day that passes is another day of needless suffering, another day of indignity, another day when human lives are quietly discarded behind these gates.

Sincerely,

A Voice from Inside Clarevue

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