University Neuropsychiatric Institute

Ellie Sondock

YA CAT program: the staff are generally really awesome people. This place will not treat you at all except maybe some med changes. You will get answers through your testing, but it will mostly help future doctors more than you. This place is a good break from life if you need one. Come for the diagnosis and testing and kind staff because all the other programming is bad. The place is very unorganized too. Don't be afraid to ask for things you want like going to see a movie in the park- you just might get it. Shout out to Mona, Lily, Paul, Jeremy, Shaylin, and Katie for making my stay there the best it could be.

Mare

Not sure if they erased my review, but this place needs less than one star. My friend and her therapist call hours prior to see if she would be allowed to be inpatient. They told her she was accepted and to come in. We get there, they tell her that they accept her primary but not her secondary insurance and that they would figure it out…again telling her she would be admitted. We go back to the consult room to speak with the intake person. My friend tells the social worker why she’s there. She’s suicidal, homicidal, depressed etc. she’s OBVIOUSLY upset. We stayed in this room, and I’m not exaggerating, for FIVE hours. With no one telling us why, or what was happening, or why we were still waiting in this consult room, when they told my friend and her therapist that she would be accepted as an patient. I had to keep stepping out of the consult room to see what the problem was. My friend is hysterical, she’s in tears, depressed and anxious. We were offered no information. Offered no water, no snacks or anything! Finally after I had enough, I stepped out and knocked on the nursing / office door. I told them that we were going to leave because waiting this long with no answers or help was getting ridiculous. Of course we are locked in the consult area, and can’t leave without a staff badging us out. They come out, tell us again that the secondary insurance isn’t accepted and that they would now be calling Gold Cross ambulance to transport her another facility. They also tell us that my friend is now pink slipped and that I’m unable to drive her to another place myself. The whole purpose of me taking my friend to UNI, was to avoid an ambulance transport. THE WHOLE reason why she and her therapist called UNI prior, was to ensure that she wouldn’t get ambulance transferred. She was willingly and wanting to be admitted as an inpatient at UNI, but instead she got her rights stripped from her, and was ambulance transferred to another facility. All while being strapped and restrained to the stretcher simply for being pink slipped. I’m furious with the lack of care and mistreatment of this place. Those who work here for mental health, should not be working here. Why would they lie and tell my friend, her therapist, and even me that she was accepted as an patient, just to be transferred somewhere else? Why would it matter if her secondary insurance wasn’t accepted, when her primary insurance was?

LG

Don't send any tennager (14) who has Autism here, that are dealing with suicidal ideation or depression. If you pull from the program they will call DCFS and claim you're an unfit parent. You fill out tons of paperwork; which by the way the psychiatrist Dr. Ashlee Hardestey doesn't go through. They interview the parent(s) and child, and she doesn't listen. My son was in this program for four and a half days. On the third day, he started to have suicidal thoughts again and unwelcoming behavior; which he had not had in 2 weeks. They couldn't tell me what happened. On day four I received a call from Dr. Hardestey in the morning stating she recommended he be put on an anti-depressant and another medication for psychosis; to which I agreed. So they first started one of the meds, and two days later would start another. After four hours Dr. Hardesty called again and stated my child needed to be put into an inpatient program. I agreed after discussing this for about 15-20 minutes. As I asked additional questions; during this conversation, she mentioned that he may not be a candidate for their day treatment program after inpatient services. I chose to discharge my child because I wanted another opinion and did not want to bounce my child around for services. Not to mention I was not allowed to go and see my child before her wanting to put him in inpatient services so I could let my child with Autism know he would not have abandonment issues; which by the way, she said he would have & feel, and that they would help him get through that. What!?! So she called and turned me into DCFS for going against her recommendation and told DCFS he was not safe with his parents because he was suicidal and during treatment tried to choke himself. Which again, they couldn't tell me why. Now she has created additional issues with my ASD child for now he feels he will be removed from our home; the one place where he feels the safest and has NEVER made a suicide attempt. So now with the already issues he was facing now this carless Dr. Ashlee Hardesty has created another mental health issue. BTW. She was comparing my Autistic son to others on the spectrum. If she was any kind of good psychiatrist you can't compare ASD children for they each have their differences.

Bobbi Jo Bowser

Placed adult son in for suicide attempts. He was willing to get admitted because he wants help. He only saw a therapist 4 of the 9 days he was there and only for 5-15 minutes each of those days. Was able to talk to a Social Worker each day, but only for 5-10 minutes. The largest part of the day was idle/free time. They had some group gatherings (that were optional) where they played Apples to Apples game everyday. Our insurance doesn’t pay for mental health, so we borrowed money to pay because our son desperately needed help. Now we are heavily in debt and our son was back to trying to commit suicide within a week.

Graham Carver

For the most part, my stay here this time was really good. Most of the staff was amazing the entire time. The food was a little bland too. The accommodations have not improved at all, however. A motel 6 would have been preferred but motel 6 doesn't take my insurance. The sheets and linens were the hospital quality which is to be expected but also very rough against the skin. Every other patient I talked to had the exact same complaint of my mattress has a giant crater in the middle and when brought to the staff's attention we were all told. Sorry there are no other mattresses we can exchange them for. I'm pretty sure that facility got donated quite a substantial sum of money recently, but the patients to my knowledge haven't seen any of it. But that is not a justifiable reason to dock them more than what I did. Because the staff was so short-handed on a constant basis patient care fell by the wayside. In my opinion. We didn't have adequate enough opportunities to stretch our physical, mental or emotional limbs. My time filler for my 7 day luxury retreat was pacing the hallways that was about 6 hours of every day, I don't need that much cardio. Fresh air brakes outside are no more than 15 minutes after every meal and at those times patients were so tightly wound to go outside that it didn't seem has beneficial as it could have been. I feel they could have been even a little bit longer to be more helpful. The between meal snacks for patients were constantly running low or completely out saying more needed to be ordered. I don't know if that's something that can be remedied or not, but we did find it to be obnoxious. Almost all of the staff was a pleasure to be around most of the time, even if you could tell they were exhausted. They were great listeners when needed but the suggestions never much seemed to change. Because of my diagnosis's my problem became pretty consistent day today and so did the answers I was given when asking for help. I'm not saying that's their fault but it did affect my overall view towards my stay. As I said, I enjoyed being around almost all of the staff. Some of them were even able to take a joke. I've had 12 stints in different psychiatric units thus far in my life and I still feel like even after I've said everything I've put in this review this institute is the best place I have been for treatment of my mental health in the last 20 years! But there is room for improvement and I hope they see this review.