Mentally Ill Being Pushed Out OF Institutions

[46Young]

http://www.nytimes.c...n/02mental.html

Thoughts?

[DwayneEMTP]

http://www.nytimes.c...n/02mental.html

Thoughts?

A lot of it depends of whether or not they will have adequate support in place for when these people are moved, but in general it is certainly better for the majority of mentally handicapped people. If you want to give damaged people the tools to heal, or if unable to heal then more 'normally' assimilate, one of the easiest ways to do that is to expose them to normally developing people. The more progressive school districts now 'main stream' their special needs kids with an aid. Of course it's much easier to put them all in one classroom with one teacher and several aids, but then they spend their time with others that have developmental issues as well so that, for the most part, is their entire pool of behavior to model from. When exposed to normally developing kids then they have normally developing behaviors to model from as well as the benefit of being exposed to many different types and styles of teaching.

I am speaking from my experience with an autistic child only. When you add in the many diagnosis of the people that will be involved perhaps things get queered in some way. I'm not sure.

From the autistic point of view, if individual diagnosis are considered and supported, and the if the 'cattle' mentality normally applied to our elderly, infirm and mentally challenged is not allowed to propagate, then I believe that this is an awesome idea. Bottom line is that we know that what we're doing now isn't working. The conditions that these people normally live in is horrendous (speaking in general of course.) and should be criminal. Any intelligent progressive move should be supported.

Lots of 'ifs' though, huh?

Dwayne

[aussiephil]

I think we really need to look at this in perspective.

If a person has cardiovascular disease, we have no hesitation in leaving them at home to self administer meds & in essence care for themselves. Same with diabetics, epileptics & just about any other illness.

The problem with mental illness is the stigma that is associated with it. This is primarily media driven because they are at pains to point out that a person was bipolar or schizophrenic. Why dont they tell us that the person suffers from IDDM? or cardiovascular disease?

Mental illness covers a range of illnesses & the vast majority of people with mental illness can be & is sucessfully managed at home, as are most other illnesses. What we see in EMS is the wort cases of people who have a severe mental illness & represent a very small percentage of people who suffer a mental illness. This tends to give us a jaded opinion of mental health overall.

In most commonwealth countries many people over the years (and this included such things as women with PMS) we held at the pleasure of Her Majesty until they could be cured. Would we consider this at all for any of the other illnesses I mentioned (although this was the case for many years for people with epilepsy, but attitudes changed with advancement in medical science & epilepsy became an 'acceptable' illness).

People with mental illness, rgardless of personal opinions, still need to be treated with dignity & the wholesale institutionalisation of sufferers has not been a standard practice for many years. There are those who do need to be kept under scrutiny for their safety, as well as the safety of others, but personal liberties need to be maintained. Here, & I can only speak for my state, this is covered by legislation & to keep a person, they can only be held for more than a minimal period (time frames vary depending on availability of psych beds & full competency assessments) under the order of a court. This legislation stipulates what the persons entitlments are & appeals processes. However the main underlying tone is that the aim is to keep the person only for the period of time that is long enough to assess & if necesarry medicate & monitor with a goal of release back into the general popuus at the earlies possible time.

This is becomeing increasingly important considering the World Health Organisation lists that by 2020 worldwide Mental Illness will be the second biggest killer in the world behind trauma.

[FireMedic65]

Dwayne and Phil hit it pretty much straight on the head. Lots of people with these illnesses, don't necessarily need to be in a hospital. I have been to them many times (at a student and work) and many of them, are highly capable if being on their own. Most of them can be on their own with a home care nurse or even an aid stopping by once in awhile. Why jam pack hospitals with people who don't need to be there?