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

get off the streets QV kick

supposedly temporary but they rarely move on Zippi unless of course they regress and go back which happens alot with those who have become institutionalised. also those who have moved on to live independantly again struggle due to institutionalisation and often come back.

No that was a tradegy! Just trying to make the point that it was a number of errors on many grounds and not just the mental health services!
The rape victim analogy is far off the mark a better one would be a builder being hit in the head by a brick and nit having a hardhat on!

zippi: Our clients are a mixture: sonme are in permanent accomodation, some temporary, some on in-patient short stay units! Some in the community in their own accomodation!

I'm only scared of anyone, mentally ill or not who constitute a threat to myself or my family. It is typical that they have simply highlighted those crimes that have been committed by someone suffering mental illness or where that person was recently released so instead of focusing on how poor the services for the mentally ill are in this country and how badly supported and looked after (in a lot of cases) they are, they focus on it all being down to how they are insufficiently detained blah blah blah. I'm more scared of the manipulative and scaremongering headlines if I'm honest.

I don't think that is a better analogy at all. Murder and rape are more similar than a complete accident.

but it is stories like this one that get people's attention and get people talking about it - factually, the headline is correct

Mentally ill murder 400

it's afunny time period they picked

1 a week murdered doesn't sound the same does it?

well that's how news stories get written!

they aren't going to choose the headline that has the least impact

Yeah I know what you're saying but its the wrong focus - it makes them look like they're whipping things up to get mentally ill people simply locked up or locked up for longer and that its a failure of the legal system rather than being symptomatic of the dwindling health services etc in this country.

Dara: What I'm trying to say is that its about PPE (personal protective equipment)
If a policeman is attending an incident where he knows there is a danger of a knife being present he should be wearing his stab-vest to protect himself thats why its provided! BUT that doesn't make it a tradegy! This lack of PPE was a huge factor in his death had he been wearing this he may well have survived! I was just trying to illustrate that in this particluar incident the "blame" was as much to lie with other profesionals not just the mental health professional yet the media were attacking the teams working with this client!

well it's the way the Times views it - had it been in the Guardian/Obs/Independent I'm sure it would have treated the subject differently.

I think it places as much focus on the government for not introducing any new mental health reforms (which would no doubt require funding). The leader focuses on that bill but that's just opinion and I think there are a fair few (in the general public) who think that way.

Strongly agree with Armadillo that the truth is you are far more likely to be murdered by a sane person (probably your husband, at that.).

As for forcing people to take their medicines, people who have mental illness have just as much right as anyone else to object to medicines that don't suit them (there's a statistic that shows that only a small percentage of prescribed drugs are ever taken - people don't follow the instructions, why do we think this group should be any more well-behaved than the rest of us?).

Psychy drugs can have horrid, disabling side effects. People should be supported to either find the right drug that helps them without causing incapacitating side effects or to access other treatments. But all too often the support they need isn't there. If they are lucky enough to get treatment, they often don't get much say in what that treatment is.

I'm still interested to know what response people think my thread title was trying to elicit..I actually have very complex responses to this issue myself..I don't think it is at all clear cut

can you tell me

I think there are a proportion of mentally ill patients with conditions such as schitzophrenia who, on medication, can lead some sort of life but without that medication can have delusions, hear voices and turn violent and act unpredictably. I really do believe that if they don't take their medication they should be taken into hospital.

Unfortunately, there isn't always the perfect medication out there for mental illness and sometimes, patients put up with nasty side effects because they are better than becoming violent and becoming a danger to themselves and society and I think, if they choose not to take those medicines, then for their own safety (and that of anyone who comes into contact with them), they should be taken in to hospital.

and I should say, I know all schitzophrenics are not violent but that there are a small proportion for whom violence/major paranoid delusions are a problem.

Zippi: NO I'm not scared of the mentally ill, No I wouldn't vote to keep them off the streets! But I would vote for more funding into mental health services in general!

At the end of the Day most people on this tread agree that more funding and better services are needed for people with mental health problems!

epilepsy is a side effect of some medications

would say no not scared of mentally ill.

Would not vote in favour of just keepign them off streets, but would vote for better funding.

sorry said the wrong thing there

what i meant was that a couple of people said that i wanted a particular response as I skewed the thread title and I wondered what those people thought i wanted people to think (or somethngin)

Zippi: what medication causes epilepsy?

BTW: I do think when I read the tread title it came across as a negative title?

no I'm not scared of them

I wouldn't vote for it because of the far-reaching consequences but I do think that mental health nurses/doctors should be given the power/ability to section patients they consider a danger to themselves or others when they find out they haven't been taking their medication (even if it just means they can then safely make an assessment of their mental state and discuss other treatment options).

I'll find out it's for schizophrenia very effective but can cause epilepsy

i haven't read the whole thread at all, but they shut two hospitals around here in the last ten years for housing. i do wonder where the patients went, they were locally known.

some are institionalised and can't cope without structure.

foxinsocks: They can (generally) currently section someone under thise circumstances...........if they can find a bed!