Lyn H.
4/5
It has taken me 2 years to write this review. I was in a very bad position when I arrived at Neworld, having been on prescription pain killers for 9 years for a well documented real pain condition. However, as we all know the more opiate you take the more your body needs and after 9 years my dose of oxycodone was immense and impossible to continue. I was terrified to stop, at such a high dose I knew the withdrawals that were ahead of me. I'd done 3 previous supervised withdrawals, so I knew would happen and this time my dose was the highest ever. I don't think anyone thought that I could do it. There is so much detail I could write here about what happened to me while I was there, please comment back if you would like more detail. Coming off such a high dose of oxycodone is very dangerous which is why it had to be done in a detox facility. The amount of misery, pain, sickness, gastro problems, sleep disturbance and physical limitations I experienced was nothing less than a nightmare. I expected nothing less and so I was at least mentally prepared. I could not walk properly for months from the agony from my leg muscles, I needed a wheelchair to leave neworld. I started suboxone within the first 24 hrs of being there, however their policy was to only give a certain amount and no more and it did not cover the withdrawals that I was having from the high dose of oxycodone that I was on. It did help, but not enough for any type of peace. I could not have done it without it though so I am thankful for the small amount I did receive. I think Neworld should consider raising the dose of Suboxone in relation to the dose of opiate you come in on. The national guideline for safe dosing of Suboxone is a lot higher than their maximum amount, at least it was in 2018.
I was originally booked to stay for 8 days and I ended up having to stay for 17 days due to the state that I was in. That is a lot of money. However there was no physical way that I could leave before then and even after that I spent another 3 weeks in nursing care once I got back home and a further 3-4 months continuing to have difficulty walking from the pains of withdrawal. My pain condition is my head/brain, not my body.
While I was there, I was so immobile that I got a serious blood clot in my leg. My body ballooned up to an enormous size and I was breathless. Neworld did their due diligence at the time and sent me by ambulance to the nearest hospital in the middle of the night. However that was a small hospital in Georgetown and most of their facilities were closed because it was night time, CT, MRI, Xray etc. The hospital concluded that I was constipated and sent me back to Neworld -- meanwhile I had a life threatening blood clot. That blood clot subsequently broke off and travelled to my lung causing a pulmonary embolism, for which I was hospitalised and very lucky to have survived. This happened as soon as I got back home. I feel very lucky to be alive right now as pulmonary embolisms are a death sentence for many people, I am very lucky that the clot travelled to my lung and not my heart or brain, though the lung can be deadly as well.
It was clear to everyone that I was immobile for the weeks that I was at Neworld. Not much concern was attached to the fact that I could hardly move around, so I myself did not worry about it as I was too sick to care or want to move. One security guard did help me walk up and down the driveway several times (thank you so much Risha !) and the nurses did help me up and down the stairs without complaint. However, in retrospect it is clear that I needed to be moving a *lot* more than I was -- the staff should definitely put more attention into making sure that patients in severe withdrawal keep moving every hour to prevent what happened to me. I dread to think what would have happened had I died at Neworld from that pulmonary embolism.
The house is very nice, and the supply of food when you are ready for it is great. There is no privacy (other than in your own room but you can hear everything that is going on) so if you
