A MOTHER who claims she was dragged naked from her bath and taken to hospital against her will vented her anger before managers of Airedale NHS Trust this week.

An independent review panel is to consider complaints made against the trust by Sutton woman Susanne Kellner-Johnson.

Trust bosses have said they are taking her complaint very seriously, but Mrs Kellner-Johnson claims her questions are being ignored.

The Austrian-born woman was detained under the Mental Health Act at Steeton‘s Airedale Hospital between March and May of this year.

Since April she has bombarded the trust with letters and telephone calls.

Her complaints involve a counsellor and two psychiatrists and the condition of the mental ward.

Mrs Kellner-Johnson attended Tuesday’s monthly trust board meeting where she repeated her claims that she had been ignored as well has handing out details of her case to board members.

“You are not responding to any of my letters,” she told them. “This hospital does not comply with the Patient’s Charter.”

But trust board chairman Jill Penn and chief executive Robert Allen tried to re-assure her that they were taking her case seriously, before adjourning the meeting so they could talk to her in private.

After the meeting, she issued a statement detailing her claims and demanding answers to a series of questions.

She described how her bathroom door was broken down by police on the orders of a psychiatrist, how she was taken from her bath, strapped to a trolley and taken to the hospital by force.

“To this day I do not know why I was sectioned,” she said. “Yet the hospital management has continuously refused to divulge any information regarding the circumstances of my forced detention.”

Mrs Kellner-Johnson also claims she was denied access to her belongings and did not get any exercise in the fresh air for three weeks.

And she now faces a huge legal bill after having to fight for custody of her young daughter, who was taken into care.

“Nobody will ever be able to erase the horror, terror and fear from myself and my daughter’s memories,” she added.

“Whoever did this to us should come forward and tell us why.”

Susan Franks, Airedale NHS Trust’s director of nursing and quality, insists everything possible has been done to handle Mrs Kellner-Johnson’s complaint.

“When we identify that something has gone wrong, we apologise and tell complainants what steps we have taken to ensure that things don’t happen again,” she said.

Mrs Franks added that she could not comment on individual cases but explained that an independent review panel would look at the evidence.

She also insisted that Patient’s Charter standards had been met and denied claims that the trust made it difficult for people to complain.

If Mrs Kellner-Johnson does not accept the decision of the review panel she has the right to go to the Health Service Ombudsman.

“I am not giving up,” she added. “No one should have to go through what I have gone through.”

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