by Sandra Webster
I can remember writing for Mental Health Awareness week last year. The world seemed a more hopeful place then with folk dreaming of a different Scotland which would support the most vulnerable. We have gone round the sun another time and have things changed at all?
The barriers that folk with mental health have to deal with are the same as other people with disabilities but like other less visible disabilities they receive more prejudice. The truth is until mental ill health affects someone you care about or yourself it is hard to imagine life can be. The only reports we read in the paper are of the sad times when people have been let down by so community care and something very tragic happens. The truth is that one in four folk will be affected by mental ill health at some point in their life. That means your workmate, your friend.
The stigma of mental ill health is such that we find it difficult to have conversations about. Many face everyday demons with little support. This is not usually the case if you have a physical illness but memories still prevail of asylums and folk who are neighbours explained. “were not right in the head” and we all want to fit in.
The only positive note in the Tory manifesto was to spend more in mental health services but I fear this will mean policing folk, stricter controls on administration of medicines. Mental Health services have always been the Cinderella of the NHS and sadly that is unlikely to change in this current climate of cuts. Meanwhile mental health provision continues to groan under the pressure of less resources. Our local mental health hospital has just lost 3 of its 4 acute mental health wards – which amounts to 45 beds lost. There are now 15 beds available for folk who are sectioned and acutely unwell. No-one wants to be in a mental health ward, but sometimes it is necessary. At least in Dykebar the accommodation was new and folk had their own room. The nearest hospital is now in Glasgow with old grubby, nightingale wards with little privacy. Asylum also has another meaning; a place of refuge. How can cutting local hospital beds and forcing folk to travel long distances for care provide that? I fear more cuts will follow.
I want to leave on a positive note. The SSP recently signed up to the One in Five campaign. How can we ensure our party is a better place for people with mental ill health? We have to start by challenging stigma and listening. We all know someone with mental ill health whether they choose to share it with us is a different matter but we can all be agents of change by challenging the societal attitudes which sadly prevail. See the person first not the label they have been given.
Policy: The Scottish Socialist Party is committed to campaigning for mental health treatment to be directed primarily towards rehabilitation rather than alleviation of symptoms, and for people suffering mental illness to have access to a full range of treatment options – modern medication, counselling, short- and long-term psychotherapy, occupational therapy and diversional activities.
We believe treatment for mental illness should be primarily community-based, although backed up with modern, well-staffed inpatient facilities.
The fullest respect for the rights of people with mental health problems, including public education to challenge the stigma associated with mental health and derogatory labelling of people with mental health problems.