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It has now been Mental Health Awareness Week for over three thousand days

Started by Zetetic, May 10, 2021, 05:12:47 PM

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Zetetic


Buelligan


garbed_attic

The ineluctable marketable core of our authentic individualistic selves that we must simultaneously overcome through mindfulness meditation and CBT courses!

Zetetic



Diseased children isolated at a US-run facility near Coventry have created nature-themed window display.

English inspectors visited the facility earlier this year, following concerns being raised by families and whistleblowers. They found the facility to be understaffed and chaotic, but decided to let it continue operations as they have done in the past.


Gambrinus

It baffles me why we send vulnerable women hundreds of miles away from their families and any kind of support networks they have to be "treated" in privately run units.

I know personality disorders can be hard going but this is inexcusable.

Cuellar


Zetetic

It's now been two years since NHS Wales withdrew patients from R*g*s Healthcare's for-profit children's mental health unit in Ebbw Vale because they were restraining kids for hours.

They're still doing it. Welsh regulator doesn't care enough to shut them down. England continue to sends its write-offs. The hospital remains profitable.

Zetetic



The second sentence is a bit mask-off, and from one of the few MPs that gives a shit about this either way.

Zetetic

We're now in the situation where the most profitable thing for companies like Cygnet is to keep having scandals at their hospitals.

1) They usually get shot of a substantial liability, since a lot of these places are decrepit and were only bought to reduce competition.
2) The response to the scandal is that "we must stop putting people in inpatient services" which drives disinvestment in NHS hospitals... leaving the NHS with the only option of sending more people to hospitals run by a cabal of for-profit providers.

Gurke and Hare

I'm no expert so happy to be corrected but it seems likely to me that a pretty big majority of mental health issues would be best treated using well-funded outpatient services - is that not the case? I've no doubt that there are people whose mental health issues would be better addressed as inpatients, but I can't imagine a worse cure for depression than a hospital stay.

Blue Jam


Zetetic

Quote from: Gurke and Hare on June 03, 2021, 02:28:23 PM
I'm no expert so happy to be corrected but it seems likely to me that a pretty big majority of mental health issues would be best treated using well-funded outpatient services - is that not the case?
Yes, but:

1. Community services are not well-funded, particularly if we look beyond healthcare and start thinking about housing and meaningful activities. The latter will not be well-funded in our lifetimes. Further disinvestment from NHS-provided inpatient services will not make the difference to this (particularly while we're just transferring the demand - and cash - to for-profit services), just as it has not made the difference for the last 60 years.

2. "Pretty big majority" is not all, and we should stop throwing the worst-off amongst us under the bus.

QuoteI've no doubt that there are people whose mental health issues would be better addressed as inpatients, but I can't imagine a worse cure for depression than a hospital stay.
A hospital stay in an understaffed hellhole, perhaps, unless you count hanging yourself alone at night hundreds of miles away from anyone who knows you as a cure for depression.


Zetetic

To be a bit more ... useful - I think we need to accept that some people will need a place of asylum from the world to have a chance of getting better.

Maybe that doesn't have to look like a "hospital". There are residential places setup as "alternatives to hospital", often run by charities and the like[nb]Noting that some of these run hellholes as well, but that's another issue.[/nb]. A not insignificant stumbling block there is that issues of risk put the NHSs of the UK off from placing people in these alternatives, versus the traditional choices.

Zetetic

Just to note that we seem to be hitting "oh shit we actually can't find anywhere to admit anyone" in multiple age ranges across - at a minimum - multiple regions of the UK right now.

Zetetic

Labour complaining about mental health beds being cut by "25%" in England.

The punchline is a bit obvious, to be honest.

TrenterPercenter

Quote from: Gurke and Hare on June 03, 2021, 02:28:23 PM
I'm no expert so happy to be corrected but it seems likely to me that a pretty big majority of mental health issues would be best treated using well-funded outpatient services - is that not the case? I've no doubt that there are people whose mental health issues would be better addressed as inpatients, but I can't imagine a worse cure for depression than a hospital stay.

Outpatients and community MH care are absolutely essential for preventative treatment and improving outcomes.  The problem is that of course you still need linked inpatient care for people when they get really ill and it is just shocking how little of it is available.  It's the NHS's dirty secret.  When I used to work on site you would regularly see people being physically removed from inpatient care because they were deemed "well enough" and they needed the bed - they would sometimes make mini shanty towns outside the unit because they had nowhere safe to go.  You've currently got children with severe MH illnesses being put in inpatient care 100s of miles away from their parents or waiting 12 months+ to get any kind of specialist care.  It's a complete and utter joke.  In early intervention and prevention we've got absolutely nothing either, everything has to be done on the cheap or with people sacrificing their own mental health trying to mesh something together to protect people.  It's shameful.