Cambridge teenager hopes new children's hospital tackles mental health 'taboo'
Alisha suffered from physical and mental health issues growing up
A teenager from Cambridge who was born prematurely said she's trying to find the positives after going through a tough time in hospital.
Alisha was born prematurely at 24 weeks and was transferred from children's to adult accident and emergency {A&E} departments and has undergone treatment for the likes of heart, lung and sight conditions.
"To be turned away from that and then be put into an environment where there's a lot of drunk people, a lot of you know, not very nice things happening," she said.
"Having that exposure so at such a young age has changed me a lot."
The 19-year-old, who's been an outpatient at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge for 16 years, was born with hearing loss and has had to overcome mental health issues including depression and bullying at school.
"I wanted them to take me seriously"
She's helping shape plans for a new Cambridge Children's Hospital (CCH) as part of a young adult forum, including the transition from children's to adult services, teenage spaces, the hospital school and reintegration back into mainstream school.
While in hospital growing up, Alisha struggled through school because of her health.
Writing on the CCH website, she said she wanted to "change the way doctors communicated information and treated me; I would’ve loved them to be more transparent and clearer about treatments and procedures.
"I wanted them to take me seriously and not treat me like 'just another patient’.
"As a child, there were several incidents where I wasn’t told what procedure I was going to have and why; that made me feel very confused and unsure about what was going on.
"If they had provided some information about my treatments, then I wouldn’t have been so confused and scared."
So far, Alisha is recovering from the challenges she's faced with her mental health and is aiming to find "good ways of dealing with it".
And by being part of the forum, she feels listened to.
“It feels like us young people’s voices get dismissed a lot as 'not being serious' or us being 'too young' to understand the complexities of how hospital works and how it’s run," she said.
"But these Cambridge children’s forums make such a difference because I feel like senior people are actually taking us seriously and listening to our views, opinions and ideas.”
Alisha hopes the new CCH, with its main construction due to start in 2025, will combine physical and mental health services to help tackle a stigma in young people reporting mental health issues.
"When I had depression, some people are labelled as lazy or not bothering to get help; it's a taboo and I feel we shouldn't be ashamed to admit we have mental health struggles," she added.
"It's taken me a very long time for me to admit to myself 'I do struggle with my mental health'; with the CCH, I feel like hopefully they'll be a reduction in the stigma to get help because there'll be more encouraged as the two services are linked together."