are you scared of the mentally ill..and would you vote to keep them off the streets?

[zippitippitoes]

..the mental health Bill are you keen to see it enacted or not?

sunday times and it's mentally scarred leader

charliecat my brother is virtually the same We had a terrible time earlier this year when he stopped his medication and was really quite dangerous

in the article it is written (intentionally??) to confuse..it is rather hard to tell whether the journalist is talking about numbers out of the 52 deaths per year or one per week when he says eg "one in six deaths were attributed to the failure to ensure that mentally ill patients took their medication" or out of all murders.

Mentally ill is a term that is disliked within some quarters of mental health care and communities, as being prejudicial and discriminatory itself.

I have to say I agree with dara.

Quad, it is incredibly hard to judge when mentally ill people may be dangerous/violent. I think it said (in the article) a third of the people who committed the murders had been deemed to be low risk by mental health workers.

That is the probably with severe mental illness - it is unpredictable and even more so when the medication isn't taken regularly.

not 'probably' - the problem

Is it that hard though?? Who deemed them low risk and why?
IME which is quite limited we have had to call the police on three residents who were dangerous, we had tried to get help before but it wasn't until they were violent towards staff or other residents that they were found a bed. In the meantime we knew these people were on the edge but were powerless to do anything because a bed couldn't be found, as an unlocked community unit we had no power to prevent them leaving.

Its awful noddy isnt it? It was really cold today and I must say I was thankful that he was adequately housed if delusional.

I know people who have family members who have begged the mental health service for help when a relative refuses to take medication or gets worse and needs help.

They are often refused and are not given the support they need and have no where to turn.

This is this issue that needs to be dealt with - the funding and the help and support given. This will cut down the problems.

I'm not sure that this act is a terrible thing, if it will get that funding, but the way that the articles have described it make it unclear and difficult to determine.

and by violent I mean having to call the police because a staff member was founded being strangled by an aggitated client, had staff not intervened then it could have been fatal he was that deluded.

The problem with "forcing" people to take meds is that it b*ggers up the rapport built with them!
The team I work for is called assertive outreach and we work intesively with clients, the main benefit of this is that also of clients are honest with us and therefore we can monitor their meds easier even if that means taking their meds to them when needed and watching them take them! If we then have to section or force people to do this it could cause more problems with people going AWOL!

I think figgypud, that this bill means , that if they do go AWOL a warrant will be put out for them and they will be forced to take thier medicine.
Which, I think is a good thing.

I guess figgypud if you have a rapport with people then forcing them would be a final resort when all else has failed and safety has become an issue.

yes, but I believe, because of the massive sell off of the mental hospitals in the 80s, there really is nowhere to put them.

Even if you threw money at the situation now, you're looking at having to purchase land, build hospitals/secure units - that's going to take years. There just aren't enough beds for everyone that needs them and even money cannot solve that problem in the short term.

The Tories really have a lot to answer for on this one.

i haven't read the article and have just skimmed these posts but one line "mentally ill kill 400"

jumped out at me. how many of those who have killed were known to mental health services until they did anything?

and lets face it i would imagine EVERY murderer is in some way mentally instable, otherwise they wouldnt have murdered....surely?

where i live we have two very large mental health hospitals one private and one NHS, the NHS one has been seriously downsized due to the promotion of placement in community settings.

I think there would be bed blocking too which would mean that undiagnosed and unsupported people would still be unable to get help

the current situation is dire because successive governments have made or rather kept mental health as a cinderella service

i think articles like this just make people have a knee jerk reaction when really more people should get involved with mental health issues at local level

there is nothing for people to do inside psychiatric units (there is more to do in secure ones) or in the community and they end up drinking and aimless when they could be given support and work and social help.

most murderers are not mentally unstable..that is a popular misconception

also there are better medications but these tend to be more expensive as they are still patented so many people stay on older ones which have rotten side effects

Charliecat: IME when people go AWOL (depending on how ill they are) Its all well and good putting out a warrent for them, You've got to find them first?

Quad: Yes I hope this would be a last resort! BUT thats pretty much what we already do, as soon as someone on our caseload has begun to stop taking or refuses meds and show signs of beong "wobbly" we get them into hospital!

DO agree on the bed shortage now though!!

I beg to differ on the nothing to do in units Zippi, the ones I have worked in provide a huge amount of patient cntred activities (non secure btw) including intergration into the wider communties in terms of jobs etc. Although patients can't be forced to get involved many do and benefit hugely.

Zippi - surely killing someone deliberately, with malice a fore-thought, is surely evidence of a dis-eased mind??

But surely ALL violence is a health issue.

That is a very leading thread title, especially while claiming bias on the part of the editor of the paper?

I knew someone whose mother was killed by her brother while he was in the community. Families of people with mental health problems are far far more likely to be subject to violence than the general public. Ask them what they want and the answer is more supervision and better treatment, including the right to be detained.

In the case I state above, the family (including the brother as I understand) had begged for him to be admitted, on the basis that he was talking about killing someone, but he was not admitted, and subsequently went on to kill.

There is a balance to be struck between the patient's human rights and the risk that they are likely to do harm to someone else. Some would argue that this balance is not being achieved, but no doubt others will argue statistics.

and did I say "surely" enough times in that last post?

Also the drinking of alcohol is largely discouraged mainly to do with the interference with meds, many of our residents didn't drink as it was seen as a breach of contract.

zippi: Just out of curiosity, Do you have experience of hospitals? Did they have any OT input? I'm an OT and when I worked on the in-patient units my job involved finding meaningful activities for people! The problem seems to be that nurses are always put before any other profession in terms of funding! Hoever many clients IME have stated that they find OT really helpful!

It seems that 'begging for beds' is far to common place and very worrying.