How Our System Fails People We Should Most Help.

In my country, an ever increasing number of anti depressants are being prescribed, a record number, as it goes.

This is despite a Government directive suggesting that counselling together with excercise, should be offered, by GP's, before a medical option.

And I could not agree more.

The reason why this directive is not happening is due to a lack of counsellors, and the reason for a lack of counsellors, is a lack of funds being ringfenced, for that very thing.

But that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Mental health patients in general are simply not given the care and help that fellow human beings, often those that find life a genuine struggle, deserve.

And that, folks, is shame on any country which is culpable of neglecting it's most vulnerable.

I have known of instances in which a clearly depressed, maybe even dangerously depressed person had to wait around seven months for their counselling to begin.

That, to me, seems appalling. Isn't it logical that if this person has ASKED for help, that waiting seven months may be putting their life at risk? And don't doctors take an oath to preserve life? Not that I blame them specifically, if there are simply not enough paid counsellors, then you cannot blame them. There are volunteer counsellors, but again, their waiting lists are long, and they do not have enough people volunteering.

One of the many downsides with the metropolis in which many live, is that for all it's buzz and population, it can be a place in which one can feel invisible.

People often have never met their neighbours, in their apartment.

It is almost crazy to think that some bar drunk can cause a fight, end up taking second prize, and he is seen to right away, at the accident ward, even if he only has cuts and bruises.

A thug can get treatment right away, yet someone who has committed no crime, and most needs speedy help has to wait that long.


Wrong, imo.

 

We definitely should spend more on mental health, but we should also commit people more often.

We have far too many people that are far too unstable to be in open society.

 

Ah, well, it is even harder than before to do this, and the inclination is not to do so.

Of course, we could go back to the 80's, when Thatcher, typical conservative, introduced something called 'Care In The Community'. What this really amounted to was saving money by letting people live alone, and generally improperly supported, when they were a clear danger to themselves or to others.

With predictable results.

 

We had similar mistakes here during the 80s.

 

Not mistakes.

Cynical and calculated.

Thatcher did not care about the implications, so long as she could tell her Tory buddies she was saving them another penny in tax.

She knew that it wouldn't be her or her allies that would have to live among people who were often not fit to be living among a neighbourhood, because they could be a danger to themselves or others.

They do not live among it, so they don't care.

 

No argument here. It's a shame that they weren't "removed" from office.

 

That's one of the reasons.

The other reason is the kickbacks that doctors are getting for prescribing the drugs.

 

Hmm - it's oft said.

I'd like to know to what extent this goes on, in my country (Scotland).

These 'kickbacks' that you speak of, I assume you mean they are within the framework of existing laws, UM?

 

Well, Thatcher did fall on her own sword, in the end.

But not before her brand of British 'patriotism' had severed our industries, sold them off to yuppies, create large scale unemployment, and, of course, hung those with mental health problems out to dry.

And people wonder why I don't like British conservatism.

 

Recent item that I read.

Comments etc..


Depression in women doubles since the 1970s as they 'try to have it all'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2033806/Depression-women-doubles-1970s-try-all.html

Women are twice as likely to suffer from depression compared with 40 years ago because they are trying to juggle families and careers, researchers claim.

As many as one in seven will be affected by the condition at some point in their lives – more than double the number of men who will be.

Scientists say that the strain of trying to cope with having a family and pursuing a career is leaving women with a ‘tremendous burden’.


Researchers who have studied the extent of mental health problems across Europe say rates of depression in women have doubled since the 1970s.

They found that women are most at risk from the age of 16 to 42, when they tend to have children.

These age groups have between 10 and 13.4 per cent chance of developing depression – twice as high as men in the same age bracket.

Professor Hans-Ulrich Wittchen, who led the study, said: ‘In depression you see this 2.6 times higher rate amongst females.

‘There are clusters in the reproductive years between the ages of 16 to 42.

‘In females you see these incredibly high rates of depressive episodes at the time when they are having babies, where they raise children, where they have to cope with the double responsibilities of having a job and a family.

‘This is what is causing the tremendous burden.

‘It’s the effect on the females who can’t care any more for their family and are trying to be active in their profession, which is one of these major drivers of these higher rates.

‘We have seen compared to the 1970s a doubling of depressive episodes amongst females.


‘It happened in the 1980s and 1990s, there are no further increases now.

‘It’s now levelling off, it’s pretty much stabilised but it’s much much higher than the 1970s.'

The German researchers looked at the extent of mental health problems including dementia, eating disorders and even insomnia across the continent using previous studies and surveys.

Their work, which is published in the journal European Neuropsychopharmacology, found that 38 per cent of people are suffering from some form of mental illness. The most common of these are depression, insomnia, phobias and dementia in old age.

Just last month American researchers found that ‘supermums’ – women who try to juggle careers and families – are far more likely to be depressed.

Their study of 1,600 young women was carried out at the University of Washington.

It concluded that the women who try to do it all are more likely to feel like failures.

But other experts said men are just as likely to suffer from depression.


The difference is that men tend not to admit it so they are often never diagnosed, researchers say.

Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of the mental health charity SANE, said: ‘The reason we believe that depression is twice as common amongst women than men is that women are more prepared to talk about it.

‘Men can find it more difficult to describe their feelings of anxiety, depression or loneliness and may lack the language to express their inner feelings.’

 

They certainly go on in my country and they manage to stay within the law (or hide it if they do anything outside the law).

A friend of mine is a cardiologist and he's been offered everything from pens to international holidays (he's never accepted a thing).

Drug companies as well as medical device companies offer kickbacks quite regularly in Australia.

"IT'S A bountiful life for many an Australian specialist doctor. Dinners at Jacques Reymond, Fenix or the Flower Drum. Business-class air fares and a week in New Orleans, Amsterdam or Atlanta. Tickets to Jose Carreras and a dinner cruise, and time for a spot of golf. No need to reach for the wallet. It's all absolutely free."
http://www.theage.com.au/news/in-depth/kicking-the-kickback-habit/2007/06/29/1182624160258.html?page=fullpage

"A MEDICAL device company spent tens of thousands of dollars flying NSW and Victorian surgeons and health executives to Germany and gave them tickets to the Australia-Italy match at the soccer World Cup in 2006."
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/kickbacks-kickoffs-at-world-cup-20090907-feea.html#ixzz1Zm6VKSM4

"A LEADING psychiatrist, who has received thousands of dollars from drug companies, has appealed for his colleagues to disclose the payments they routinely receive for industry-sponsored activities."
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/drug...-credibility-20090906-fctx.html#ixzz1Zm6dBIxK

"SOME medical device companies have made secret financial arrangements with doctors in an attempt to influence the brands they implant in their patients."
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/meal...e-of-devices-20090906-fctu.html#ixzz1Zm6klGE4

 

Dope them up, make the vote a certain way and everything is just in the world?

 

Get all those healthy people off the dole and there would be money to spare for the mentally ill.

But I'm sure you would oppose that, wouldn't you?

 

Not if I believed that any monies saved would go back to those with MHP's - I am cynical, and don't believe it would.

Not if there were sufficient jobs to absorb those on the dole - there aren't, unemployment is going up, jobs are more scarce.

 

Staggering.

Totally unacceptable.

 

Ah, it's just the beauty of capitalism.

 

Get a clue and dump your pathetic Health Care system.

 

If we committed more unstable people, who would be left to log on this board

 

That is a good question...

You have to pay them in return. Then it's just, although the doping could be seen as a form of payment.

 

What makes you think adequate funding will ensure anything beyond job security for all these "counsellors"?

 

It's kind of a moot point if there isn't enough funding going to them.
There's no guarantee that sufficient funding leads to good results, but insufficient funding will guarantee poor results.

 

Only if the counseling provided by plentiful funds can, on average, be depended on to yield good results, which assumes a fact not in evidence.

 

That leads to the conclusion that counseling must be improved, not that funding must be withheld.

This is the same argument that goes on with schools.
You won't necessarily improve a school by increasing funding but you definitely won't by decreasing it.

For one thing, in both cases, one market-based method of improving service is to increase requirements and salaries-- which leads to greater costs but improes quality by ensuring that better people are hired.

Efficiency is often expensive. But for some reason we always seem to think it's going to save us in absolute dollars.
And obviously even with qualified professionals of a higher caliber, reducing the size of the caseload to a point will provide better results while increasing the caseload past a certain point will kill the whole point of hiring better people.

 

Actually it is.

And I'm not even talking about the mentally ill. I'm talking about the Health Care System as a whole.