Malvern Private Hospital

Today I'm grateful for is staff at MPH to give me the tools and knowledge I need to survive through my journey to recovery/sobriety.
Even though I discharged myself at 22 days knowing I had only 6 days left. I felt i had to detour was the only option for me.being a Pacific Islander/maori my community and peers around would help me and I would also pass on the powerful message that I had learnt while admitted.one thing I will work on is taking it one day at a time.katotoa maetaki maata

Thank you all at MPH for all your support.keep safe and stay blessed

CUZZY signing out

I am now almost 4 years clean and sober thanks to both Malvern Private and WHOS in Sydney.

The one star reviews are clearly written by ex-patients still caught in the self-pitying grips of addiction. To be honest they were probably drunk/high and feeling sorry for themselves when they wrote the reviews (the types who overdose, go to prison, get the AIDS or suicide instead of getting clean/sober).

We all walk into these rehabs as a self-pitying and self-obsessed victim who thinks they know how a rehab should operate and what’s best for them.

Have had two admissions here in the past few months. The rigid structure and combination of group therapy and 1: 1 councelling is what I’ve needed to take the next steps with my recovery. Staff are all friendly and accommodating. Facility is fairly well kept although some of the cleaning leaves a little to be desired. The therapists all have their own style which I believe is quit complimentary. The psychiatrist is very effective. At a time when I needed a safe place to go that could help me get on track, Malvern Private was there. I know several people who have gone to Malvern and stayed clean/sober since. I hope I will become one of them.

Poorly run, unprofessional, and incredibly expensive. If I could give it less than 1 star, I would. Our family was very disappointed.

Just awful! If possible my rating would be far less than 1.

Groups were held with peers plus a facilitatior. Which can be very helpful in hospitals with well trained staff having knowledge of treatment programs available in this century.
AA and other twelve step meetings are part of the programme. Helpful for some, I know.
After a few days I was required to tell my "story" to a room full of the other inmates. They in turn were expected to give personal opinions, judgements on what they had just heard, the person I seemed to be from that story. A total stranger to them. I do wish in retrospect I had been less honest in my tale, thereby hopefully presenting a picture whereby those responses may have been uplifting and supportive. If I had felt vulnerable and depressed before this episode, then afterwards I was left feeling like a raw and bleeding puddle trodden to mush. That these troubled strangers were asked to do such a thing I find extraordinary.
The staff seem to believe that "clients" require constant, public belittlement and humiliation, this to deal, I imagine, with our hugely inflated egoes? On admission no complete physical exam is performed by a competent GP. People suferring from addiction are often not only "using" to mask serious mental dissorders, but are physically in pretty poor health.

I stuck out this mental Boot Camp for three long weeks. In retrospect silly of me. In my first week a large number of wiser folks than I, left the facility, not wanting to be treated like naughty children in need of belittlement and humiliation. Malvern Pvt puts me in mind of me of some place I could have read about in a Dickens novel.

I could not help but be aware of the huge recidivism rate whilst there. Poor folks possibly feeling in need of self-flagellation but unable to perform the deed themselves. Many appeared to have complex mental problems.
I knew three who had untreated eating dissorders. One girl eating huge amounts at meal times only to appear in groups with red eyes and perpetually swollen salivary glands from purging several times a day. (I've unfortunately an intimate knowledge of this type of dissorder). Was unformed by the powers that be there that "We only treat substance addiction here". The day I left I was asked for my opinion on why so many people left within the first few days. I felt my words would have fallen on deaf ears so refrained at that time.

Are, so much for that diatribe. Take it as you will. Strange and sad that after so long, (my stay was in 2015), I still feel so much venom regarding my memories of that place.

Not at all what it is made out to be. I've been advised that Melbourne Private in Richmond is a far better, far more successful facility. This place is a joke.

My Niece was admitted there. She was forced to follow along with bizarre cult practices and left worse than when she was admitted. One of the other staff there told her Mum (my sister) straight when asked that the so called ' head' counselor didn't have one qualification in counselling and was simply causing more damage because of it. Probably the only honest person working there. Please do not admit your loved one to this place. I have to agree with previous comments - it is an expensive money making racket that will make things worse for you, your loved one and your family. Stay away.

Just so people know, the only 5 star review given here is posted by a staff member who works there.

The reason I give 5 stars is that Malvern Private saves lives, there are recovered addicts who work there, and who care in a professional capacity about the people who come for detox and then rehabilitation. I don’t believe any one approach can be said to be a cure-all for addiction, but I do know that the AA approach which is used here has been proven to work for over 70 years.

Not even worth one star! It's a strick full time job and overtime hours. It is clinical, the nurses and staff really don't care.it's all about money! It's impossible to get the required one on one councelling sessions, the classes are not relaxing as there is not enough time and the classes are to big. You are made to go to ALL NA and AA sessions even if you are for one or the other and may become a trigger.
AWFUL. TERRIBLE place that treats you like scum and not a real person seeking help. The cost is OUTRAGEOUS so don't waste your time and money!

I've just read a review that says people are being made to thank God etc etc!? Surely this isn't true?
Vulnerable people should not have religion forced upon them.

The programme at Malvern is not long enough to rehabilitate an addict. Malvern, unfortunately is all about the money and not about the addict, there is no empathy or support for the family of the addict (oh, yes, a counselling group weekly which you have to pay for).

To the above negative comments. In my opinion writing a review based on second hand information barely meets the requirement to pass comment let alone a review.
Vunerable addicts in my opinion benefit from a rigid schedule. During a typical day patients speak the serenity prayer together out loud and all together where the word god is mentioned only once. There is a preamble that is said beforehand that is: to a god or goddess or your own understanding. This could be "good orderly direction" or "group of drunks" or buddha, shiva, jesus, or light or your own self, my understanding is God is supposed to be understood as a non judgemental higher power that give you strength, reassurance, as it is acknowlegement that alone one cannot do it, and the strength from a fellowship of other addicts is far greater than yourself.
God is whatever one percieves it to be in NA/AA and there is no right or wrong in your chosen understanding, AA/NA are not connected to any religious sects or based upon any religious texts and so on.
If you can find any dialogue that states other I would be keen to see it as I struggled with the concept of god in a recovery situation also.

Very dangerous place, i would never send my children there, they force 12 step cult crap onto you and your anonymity is not taken seriously.i had so called therapists divulge in group settings what i had told them in confidence.there are better places from my experience