'I wouldn't be here now': Plea for respite house to stay open (From Times Series)

'I wouldn't be here now': Plea for respite house to stay open

12:20pm Monday 6th July 2009 in

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IT was 2007 when Alexandra Read hit rock bottom.

She had spent two months in hospital after suffering a major breakdown, lost her flat and for a time became homeless.

“I had a severe drink problem,” she said last week. “I had been taking drugs. I'm diabetic and I wasn't taking my insulin.

“I had kind of given up with everything. When I came out of hospital people had been breaking into my flat.

“I didn't feel safe. My social worker didn't really listen to me. I had just given up.”

With a history of depression, Alexandra, still only 27, said she had tried to hang herself.

“I was pretty high-risk,” she said.

Alexandra credits her recovery to a visit to Kaya House.

An anonymous residential house in an ordinary street in Woodside Park, Kaya House has proved a lifeline for people suffering from severe mental health problems.

Staffed by people who have themselves experienced similar problems, four people arrive each Friday for a weekend of respite.

Alexandra, who now lives in Gainsborough Road in North Finchley, said: “I wouldn't be here now if I hadn't stayed in Kaya House.”

For many going through a crisis, hospitalisation in a psychiatric ward is not an appealing prospect.

Kaya house, which opened four years ago, offers a different kind of recuperative experience to bring people back from the brink.

For 42-year-old Catherine Plumey, of Copwood Close, North Finchley, it was the need to get away from her “stockpile” of medication that drew her to Kaya House.

“I was feeling suicidal,” she said. “I had plans of what I was going to do. The thing about coming here was that I was able to leave my medication.

“I self-harmed, and coming here I was able to resist that temptation. There was always someone to speak to.”

Kaya House was opened by Barnet Voice, a volunteer organisation established by people who had experienced mental health issues, in December 2006.

It was intended to be a crisis centre as an alternative to, and to prevent, hospital admissions and had the backing of the Primary Care Trust.

Jane Jackson, who runs the house, said: “There has been a lot of research in terms of what patients need and for some people it's not a long hospital admission.

“For some people getting away from home can decrease symptoms of anxiety and depression.

“We can supply something different because everyone who works here knows what it feels like to go through a mental health crisis at some point.

“We're coming from a place where we understand what people are feeling.”

Kaya House received funding from a number of sources, including the National Lottery and fundraising, but most of its income came from the Supporting People programme.

The programme helps vulnerable people live independently by distributing government funds to projects. The commissioning board has decided to pull the funding for Kaya House from December.

Last week Councillor Richard Cornelius, Barnet Council's cabinet member for community services, told the Times Series that it no longer offers “value for money” and that the funding could be better spent elswhere.

He said that weekend hospital admissions had already fallen to “negligible levels” by the time Kaya House opened.

But Ms Jackson said the continued use of the facility suggested the need for it remained, and that closing it down would cost more money in the long term by precipitating a rise in hospital admissions.

She said: “This is a really good preventative measure that stops people from getting to the point where their whole life falls apart.

“If we have to close this place my concern is that there will be a lot more people who need to use the acute psychiatric services.”