Mental Health Cuts. Lives Lost

[nailedit]

Story from my local rag

https://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/news/stoke-on-trent-news/it-gave-you-hope-jasmine-9353691 More mental health service cuts. And yet we can find billions to house illegal immigrants? What the actual...

[naomi24]

Nowhere near enough is ploughed into mental health services and what is ploughed in is, by and large, wasted.

[barry1010]

There has been lack of spending on mental health for decades, support in the community doesn't work for some and the strain on families can be horrendous.

The waiting list for the memory assessment for dementia in 12 months, but the sooner patients start treatment the more successful it is.  Shameful

[Untitled]

cuts to public services over the last 14 years have caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and it is utterly shameful that Labour is continuing them. 

[barry1010]

The spending on mental health was poor long before the tories got in power. 

[david small]

The incompetence, the ineptitude, the inefficiency, the indifference, the inability to run this country brings on despair.

Have they no eyes to see? There are several i's above learn from.

[davebro3]

I never heard anything about "mental health" until (fairly) recently. We just got on with stuff.

[dave50]

Although there are genuine mental health cases, there are too many people claiming they have mental health problems or anxiety when they are feeling a bit fed up due to the usual ups and downs of life.

[Untitled]

"We just got on with stuff."

and that is why so many older people have very obvious untreated mental health problems

[Untitled]

"The spending on mental health was poor long before the tories got in power."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6025145/

[nailedit]

//Although there are genuine mental health cases, there are too many people claiming they have mental health problems or anxiety when they are feeling a bit fed up due to the usual ups and downs of life.//

Trust me dave, when I have carved myself up and try to cut my hand off its not for fun. When ive woke up in hospital having wet myself, its not because im a little bit fed up. When I wake up in the cells, its not because i want a bloody breakfast.

[jourdain2]

nailedit -dave didn't say that you weren't genuine, just that an awful lot of people aren't.  Those people are messing things up for people like you who have real needs.

[Untitled]

and dave would know would he? 🙄

[davebro3]

//and that is why so many older people have very obvious untreated mental health problems//

But still we "just get on with it" & nobody is hurt but us.

[Barmaid]

Unfortunately, answers such as that, davebro are still part of the problem.  Soldiers were executed for cowardice who were most probably suffering from PTSD (shell shock); people were locked up in institutions and subject to inhumane treatments or left to die quite painfully when suffering from "melancholia" (which would now be called depression); in effect those with a mental illness were hidden away or shunned by society.  

The problem is with many mental illnesses is that they are not immediately apparent.  The brain is the most complex organ in the body and it is therefore unsurprising that there are so many things that can go wrong with it.  A mental illness is no less an illness than a physical one.  "We just got on with it" is something I often hear and comes from a place of not understanding - not helped by the fact that until relatively recently those with mental illness were shut away or denigrated by society. 

 

You should be thankful that you have never been afflicted by crippling depression or paralysing PTSD - someone suffering such illness needs specialist treatment just like someone with a broken leg.

[davebro3]

If everyone with some sort of mental health problem (and it's increasing) required treatment/immobilisation the country/world would grind to a halt. No one is "normal".

[rowanwitch]

Well said Barmaid,  the biggest tragedy is the shortfall in child and adolescent services.  Untreated young people have all their life choices taken away, are more likely to self harm, do badly in education, are more likely become substance abusers, it's the age at which many of the worst conditions manifest but they have to struggle on with a mix of family support and medication from a GP service that is already over stretched.

Add in a waiting time of over 12 months for Autism /ADHD assessments 2-3 years for adult assessments,  and many healthcare providers offering as little as 6 weeks crisis support ( an hour per week) yes people are 'trying to get on with it' AND FAILING.    Suicide rates are rising especially in young males,  it's a slow trainwreck with far too many casualties

 

[dave50]

Why do so many children these days have autism or special needs or learning difficulties? Whenever there is a news story and they are interviewing some parent you can bet your bottom dollar that one or all their children have one or all of these issues. 

[douglas9401]

It's been monetised.

[Mozz71]

Like everything else Dave, it's not that it's a new fad, ring on the autistic spectrum of having learning difficulties or behavioural problems, it's that these problems a diagnosed now. Before, children were labelled as slow, or retarded, or just a bad kid. They weren't helped, they were punished or locked up. Is that what you want us to go back to?

[Mozz71]

Sorry, early morning fat thumbs. That should've read 

//it's not that it's a new fad, being on the autistic spectrum or having learning difficulties or behavioural problems...///