Sometimes, patients with serious mental illness, just as with other serious medical illnesses, require hospitalization. In the absence of available public or private hospital beds, there are few options.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
There is no health without mental health; mental health is too important to be left to the professionals alone, and mental health is everyone's business.
For mental illnesses, we need better access to treatment and diagnosis.
I don't like the term 'mental illness.' I'd rather just say 'mad.' Just like I always say 'loony bin,' not 'mental hospital.'
In many parts of the world, chaining of people with mental illnesses is not uncommon, nor is seeing people walking around in clearly an unwell state, half naked, and no one takes any notice of them. It is tragic. There is a basic human right, which is not about just healthcare, but it is about the right to life with dignity, a right to citizenship.
The right place for a person suffering a mental health crisis is a bed, not a police cell. And the right people to look after them are medically trained professionals, not police officers.
Most of the people who make decisions about global health are in the U.S. and Western Europe. There, the mental health care system is dominated by highly trained, expensive professionals in big hospitals, who often see patients over long periods of time. This simply can't be done in rural Africa or India. Who the hell can afford that kind of care?
Mental illness can happen to anybody. You can be a dustman, a politician, a Tesco worker... anyone. It could be your dad, your brother or your aunt.
Any other illness, any other disease that we're faced with, there's sympathy and understanding. We get help for those. With mental illness, our go-to is to categorize them as, 'Oh, they're crazy,' to belittle the problem.
The difference in the quality of medical care received by people with mental illness is one of the reasons why they live shorter lives than people without mental illness. Even in the best-resourced countries in the world, this life expectancy gap is as much as 20 years. In the developing countries of the world, this gap is even larger.
Mental health can be just as important as physical health - and major depression is one of the most commonly diagnosed mental illnesses.
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