Everybody blames all the crap on the cuts, or the mess the previous administration left, or the bankers… or some other group, I have avoided that so far, but sometimes you have to jump on a bandwagon.
I think most of us, as I do, applaud the fantastic work done in cardiac relief, cancer care and other major physical illnesses. I also deplore the lack of support for such as Motor Neurone Disease, Multiple Sclerosis and other such tragic conditions. I know that there has to be an economic factor in the fields of research and development, and that there are relatively few sufferers of these conditions, so for the good of the majority they take a back seat to the relatively common cancer and cardiac problems.
I don’t condone it, not by a long way, but I can understand it.
Now, let’s consider Mental Health, more accurately, Mental Illness. Latest estimates are that between 1 in three or four of us will suffer mental illness of some kind in our lives. Some will be relatively minor, have a recovery and remission. Many others will last for a lifetime, be totally devastating for the person and their family and friends.
Mental illnesses can be so frightening, so devastating, so utterly indescribable, and so damn lonely… and whatever, dear reader, you say there is a totally unacceptable stigma attached to mental illness, that is why you back away from it, don’t try to understand it and are frightened of it, you blame the sufferers and often call them freaks, druggies and countless other less pleasant totally undeserved names.
People with Mental Illness are first and foremost people, people who are suffering horribly with uncontrollable symptoms that no paracetamol, plasters, lozenges or antibiotics can even come close to easing.
If you haven’t been involved you can have absolutely no concept of how hideous, destructive, painful and tragic the situation can be. Imagine waking up in turmoil, with no hope, feeling devastated by everything, unable to cope with anything, unable to find the commitment to get out of bed, unable to stop crying… imagine that being your lot every day of your life. Little wonder that so many see the only way out is to end it all, or to self harm because the physical pain may hide the mental pain for a while. Not a pleasant thought is it… but countless people, for many young people with much to offer society and the world, as well as many people of every age, this is their lot in life, not for today, not for a week, but for life.
Don’t think that Mental Illness attacks people with particular lifestyles, particular age groups, particular races, religions, or sizes. Every single one of s is susceptible. If you think otherwise you are deluded.
So why is it then that Mental Health gets so little support, publicity or funding, why is it the Cinderella of the Mental Services. There could be an argument that in-patient, and indeed out-patient mental illness needs colossal commitment in terms of support and care, which in turn costs money. There is an argument to say that, but it is nonsense.
All too often acute units return patients to the community without a proper recovery, with no proper care programmes in place and without proper family care available, and this is to keep the statistics looking good… it is better for the statistics to have a patient in for a couple of months, discharge them then have them back when they relapse, often far worse than at the previous admission, it is a false economy, it is a callous response to totally false government demands for statistics. Mental Health patients are not statistics, they are people, ordinary, very vulnerable people.
If they were treated more effectively they, and their carers, would not return to inpatient status so often, costing the NHS so much more than doing the job right first time rather than trying to achieve pointless statistics.
So, back to the cuts, I can only really talk about my local Mental Health Services, where medical care is the responsibility of the PCT and pastoral care is in the hands of the City and County Councils.
The County Council does not acknowledge there is a difference in the care and support needed for mental illness as opposed to physical, which means the needs of mental patients and carers are not fully addressed.
As a direct result of the recent cuts the County and City Council are removing all the funding from the voluntary sector patient and carer support groups, which will put all of their existences at risk. Without these groups the patients and carers will have no-one to fight their corner. I have already said that the County Council does not understand the needs of Mental Illness, so they will continue to short change sufferers and carers through ignorance, and refusal to listen to the message the groups are giving them…. All to save money.
They will work with one commissioned group to look after all health care issues, but the funding is dramatically slashed, which means that the specialities will have no voice, no effective voice at least, and will suffer more and more.
Of course the risk here is that more and more will crack under the pressures, patients will be admitted to inpatient care more often and their carers will become service users themselves. We have already seen this happening.
Research into illness and disease is expensive, and funding will inevitably be reduced across the board. There should be a public outcry!!! Major physical conditions, cancer, cardiac and even eyesight, are such high profile, indeed so important that they will face minimal cuts, the cuts will happen with the lower profile conditions, such as Mental Illness, as well as MND and MS.
Commercial medical researchers will have to concentrate on the areas which will bring them the most public appeal and commercial success. Any guesses?
Mental illness is blighted by stigma, whatever I say, do or write, it comes back to stigma… because of that the subject cannot be openly discussed, sufferers and carers alike tend to try to hide their feelings and conditions from all but a select few, you only have to follow twitter to find countless people who are already in desperate need of a solution, desperate in their lives, it is so distressing to see their stories unfolding. Not only that but so many also suffer from bullying because their conditions are not understood.
In this financial climate is it possible to imagine that there will be any additional funding for an illness that is not understood, not talked about, that people are reluctant to even admit to?
Let me be clear, I have had a mental illness… am always at risk of a relapse. I have had many years caring for mental illness. I am not proud of it, but hells teeth, I AM NOT ASHAMED OF IT, any more than I would be ashamed of having the flu or a heart attack.
I will always try to be open and up front about it, and talk about it as openly we talk about other medical issues. Of course there are other taboo medical conditions, but I am not involved there, that is someone else’s argument.
No, the cuts will affect the whole range of services, but obviously the more popular, main stream and socially acceptable conditions will suffer less. This means that things like mental illness support will fall further behind in the pecking order, become even less known, but conversely lead to more people suffering, which will increase the cost of the service and of course reduce the proportionate funding for each sufferer even further.
Without the cuts, mental health support would continue more or less at is it, which is unacceptably low anyway, but when the cuts impact, the quality of the support will drop even further, probably even prejudicing the chance of actually doing anything at all for sufferers and carers.
Please, I know the government is totally out of touch with the people of this country, but could we try to make them understand that people with mental illness are amongst the most vulnerable and needy people in the country, they deserve to get full and proper support and treatment at all times. By reducing the level of support we condemn a huge number of vulnerable people to a hell on earth which they just do not deserve, and it is wholly unacceptable.
Finally, of course, the Olympics… while we are all (well some, count me out) gung-ho about the Olympics, have you considered how many charities and not-for-profit organisation have been put at risk, have to cut back their efforts or actually been forced out of business because their funding has been drastically cut as a result of the government cuts and the diversion of funding to the Olympics?
No comments:
Post a Comment