It’s a daily battle. Do I go on Twitter and be faced with uncountable stories and discussions of the world falling apart, or do I log off and decide to keep my sanity for the day?
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve found myself logging off of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram nearly every day because of the seemingly constant stream of bad news that mostly consists of the world pretty much falling apart. I battle between deciding to educate myself on the issues facing us and developing my own take on it all, and blocking it all out in an effort to not feel like the world is literally collapsing, both socially and environmentally, as we speak. From shootings to hurricanes, racial injustice to sexual harassment, the list goes on.
A little while ago, I was scrolling through Buzzfeed to find myself faced with the headline “A Chain Of Private Psychiatric Hospitals Has Been Accused Of Failing Vulnerable Young Patients”. And I sighed. I literally did a heavy, fed-up-with-the-world sigh. You know how much I feel like doing one of those on a Saturday? Yeah, not much. However, I didn’t feel like this was an article I could scroll past, seeing as I knew that all I would be doing if I didn’t click on it was a quiz to see whether Buzzfeed could accurately guess my height based on my preferred clothing choices.
I couldn’t believe what I was reading. Hotels can afford to have ratings of ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’ but under no circumstances should psychiatric hospitals be even close to such ratings. There is no way, that in 2017, young people (or people of any age, for that matter) should be given less than perfect care when they are at risk of harming themselves or others. We’re not living in the dark ages. Yes, the economy is not at its best, but that does not warrant a lack of attention when working with young people in psychiatric hospitals.
In a year when robots learned to do backflips and fridges can be see-through on demand (fine, it’s cool but it’s unnecessary), there really isn’t an excuse for why our psychiatric healthcare isn’t at its best. We’ve got to do better.
In this article written by Patrick Smith and Solomon Hughes from Buzzfeed, it is revealed that private psychiatric hospitals run by Cygnet Health Care, which was given over £100 million by the NHS over the course of one year, have been jeopardising both their patients’ mental health and physical health. Two things that you would think should be improving, not worsening. Unbelievably, at least two patients managed to lodge pieces of metal in their arms, with only some being removed in one patient’s case and all not being removed for two-to-three days in the other’s. Not only this, but one of the same patients was admitted into hospital due to having put razor blades she bought online in her mouth. How was that not prevented?! I honestly have no idea how a patient in a psychiatric hospital could possibly have bought razors online without someone finding out. I’m sure there are many complications in terms of managing that situation, but it’s not like the internet is a new thing that nobody understands; it’s got to be a problem we can solve effectively.
Let’s look at this more analytically; how will improving mental health/psychiatric healthcare benefit everyone?
I’d really rather not look at this from a financial point of view, since that shouldn’t be the main reason for improving psychiatric hospitals and mental healthcare overall, but that is the motivation for some people so I’m going to go explore that route for a bit. Bear with me.
So, according to Counselling Directory (who have taken their stats from the Mental Health Foundation), 70 million workdays per year in the UK are lost due to mental illness. As a result, mental illness is the leading cause of sickness and absence from work. Undeniably, that is going to have an effect on our economy. Not as much as Brexit might, but still an effect. If that many days where x number of thousands of pounds per day could be being generated are being lost, then surely improving mental health services would benefit our economy. So, I’m assuming that this statistic accounts for those who are already employed, but what about those with mental illnesses who are unable to work or gain employment? If these people were to be supported to the extent that they were not just fit to work according to set guidelines but genuinely in a better mental and physical state so that they can enjoy life as well, then our workforce will increase thus increasing net productivity on the whole. Maybe I’m wrong and don’t know enough about economics but helping people to be happier has got to be a plus regardless (I’m aware that people may not actually be ‘happy’ but I just needed the word to illustrate my point).
Socially, the advantages of improving mental health care are endless. Not only will the quality of life be increased for those directly affected by mental health issues, but I think that it would positively impact many other people. If those battling mental health problems are given more than adequate support to increase their quality of life and consequently their enjoyment of life, it is most likely that the communication between them and those surrounding them will become better. For example, some people battling depression are unable to relate to other people, find it difficult to communicate their thoughts effectively, and use tobacco, alcohol and drugs more frequently. If people dealing with these aspects of depression were given all the support they needed in order to help them to find these things easier, then it would hopefully result in better interactions and relationships with people in their lives. This would most likely reduce the stress for those people, as they would find their interactions more enjoyable and, if needed, more effective. Children of people with mental health problems would benefit; if their parent(s) is unable to provide a stable home for them, whether it be due to alcohol/drug/tobacco abuse, self-harm, paranoia or hallucinations, the children will be very negatively affected. Therefore, if the parent is supported and able to maintain a better quality of life for themselves, they are more likely to be able to provide a higher quality of life for their child/children. This could even lead to a lower number of children in the care system, which is an increasingly worrying issue (and, for those of you focused on the financial aspect of it, a more expensive one). I can’t s
ee any negatives to this, to be honest.
Okay, so this post was much longer than I was expecting, but I do feel it was something important I wanted to share and voice my opinions about. I understand that there are many, many obstacles to getting psychiatric healthcare at its best and I don’t know exactly how to go about it, but I do think it is one of the most important issues that needs to be discussed on a national scale and managed as soon as possible. Therefore, I want to get other people talking about it; if you have opinions on this and would be happy to write a post about it, please get in touch with me. I want to hear everyone’s perspectives on it – and have a constructive conversation about it.
References
Comments