Marlborough area patients find a new future (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Marlborough area patients find a new future

8:44am Thursday 5th November 2009

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A patient at a new eating disorder unit that opened at Savernake Hospital just over a year ago, summed up its success saying: “I came in here with just a past but now I have a future.”

The Cotswold House unit is run by the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Mental Health Trust, which has a national reputation for specialising in treating eating disorders.

It has another unit, also called Cotswold House, that has been running in Oxford for some years and 13 months ago it opened another at the Marlborough hospital to provide extra beds for eating disorder sufferers from all over the south Midlands and the south of England, including Wiltshire.

The Marlborough unit has 12 in-patient beds as well as facilities for four day patients. There are about 30 staff who provide a range of therapies to help the patients either learn to live with their illness or, for some, make a complete recovery. Its manager is Louise Tohill who said that although all the admissions so far have been women there is nothing to prevent men with eating disorders being patients there, too.

Currently there are a couple of spare beds but the unit runs at full capacity most of the time with patients staying for anything from a few weeks to many months with the average stay being about four months Mrs Cohill said she believed the new unit was successful, treating a range of patients who have had eating disorders – mainly anorexia – for anything from a few months to many years.

“The feedback we have had from patients is very positive,” said Mrs Tohill.

Vicki is a 23-year-from Swindon who has suffered with anorexia for about nine years. She said: “I was very unhappy at school and it spiralled from there.” Vicki was an in patient from September to June and is now a day patient working towards a complete recovery.

She said: “I am aiming to get better and being here has made me realise it can and will happen.

“The support and encouragement I have received has been brilliant; there is always someone there if you are struggling or need a shoulder to cry on. I know that they won’t give up on me or let me give up.”

Gillian is an articulate 54 year old mother-of-four who was a professional stage actress and dancer.

She had been anorexic for 40 years and “fought to get into” Cotswold House in order to rebuild her life.

Gillian has been at the unit for ten weeks and praised the treatment she is receiving.

She said: “When you come in here and feel absolutely helpless they give you a future to look forwards to.

“I came in here with just a past but now I have a future to look towards.”

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