West Florida Pavilion

"Look, I was a mental patient for a weekend after some head trauma, and with pre-existing conditions. You don't see a lot of positive reviews for a 3-day stay in a mental health unit, but the staff was amazing, it was as clean as you can really expect, and I felt safe. Sometimes the overwhelming nature of life can make any progress impossible and you need your decisions made for you for a couple of days and for professionals to assess your coping mechanisms. The VA covered my entire stay and it would have been worth the cash if I had it available to me like that. I walked out with a clean bill of health and conquered a few demons in the process. Love you guys; let's never do it again!"

"my experience was decent. worst part was sitting in a white room for 7 hours waiting to be put in a room in the actual pavilion. all the nurses were sweet and helpful/understanding except a nurse named tammy. a lady like her should NOT be working with mentally ill patients. that is a place for healing and to regain strength, not to be knocked down and absolutely bullied by a staff member who you’d feel like you could trust. but overall, it wasn’t bad at all. just wish that nurse could be fired."

"You failed the needs of your patient. What because yall needed a bed? If my sister tries to kill herself again, it will be your fault. She needed help and you failed her. My other sister and I tried so hard to get yall to hear us. We didn't try to violate HIPPA, we know what the problem is. But a 1 min conversation as yall are pushing us out the door, not even listening to the fact the suicide and the overdose isn't even the problem, you still sent her right back too it. Thanks for going above and Beyond. Just another patient number to yall I'm sure. Folks if yall have family that has severe mental illness, friend...don't try to get them help here."

"Sending your loved ones here is a GREAT way to kick them while they’re down. I was more depressed and hopeless in this lifeless facility than I ever was on the outside. You only get 45 MINUTES of outside time a day. There’s a small community room where you can choose between old puzzles with missing/scattered pieces, a couple of printed out coloring pages if you’re lucky (but there’s only a few colors of crayons left and they’re mostly broken and all the markers are dried out), religious books or dieting books, and theres a small TV but everyone is arguing about what to watch. If none of that sounds appealing to you (why would it?) your only other choice is to stay in your tiny uncomfortable bed and stare at the wall. The time passes so slowly when there is nothing to do. Oh and if you’re even a mildly attractive female, a lot of the guys will probably start following you around and bothering you all day! The nurses don’t seem to care, not like they can do much about it anyways. So, back to your boring, lifeless room you go to hide. Some of the nurses were very compassionate and awesome, however, most were not. You can tell they are there simply to get a check and earn a living. This is NOT a place that is meant tend to your mental health, far from it. It’s literally just a holding place. If you weren’t crazy before, this place does a great job of making you go crazy inside."

"Not perfect but a lot better than Baptist. I liked my nurses and my NP was fantastic. I enjoyed going to groups and most activities. Basic cleaning of rooms and common areas could be improved, it doesn't seem to be a priority. Some of the nursing aids were rude and seemed very jaded as if asking a question was talking back which wasn't helpful."