MENTAL HEALTH RESPONSIBILITIES

As someone who lives with a mental health disorder I believe responsibility for recovery is mine.

In Ireland to day it is now accepted 1 in 4 people will suffer with a mental health disorder. That is almost one million people. Another four million people are affected by mental health. Five hundred others will commit suicide, while thousands of others will present themselves at accident and emergency with self harm.

I believe it is the moral responsibility of every member of the community of Ireland to lend their voice in calling for a halt to the neglect, abuse, disempowerment, stigmatisation, of our mothers, brothers, sisters, fathers, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, grandmothers and grandfathers.

The most common form of abuse in this area is neglect and for years government after government since the inception of the state has neglected the area of mental health.

The fact that the numbers in 2008 are so high is no mystery, this situation is no accident, in reality the situation we find our selves in today has been brought about because of abuse and neglect. We now find ourselves in the middle of an epidemic, while the world finds itself in the middle of a pandemic. The least funded sector of the health services is mental health, and today, while we are in the grip of this epidemic, while services are presently under funded, under manned under pressure, there are strong rumors of funding been frozen at last years levels.

The author believes that with the right care and support the majority will recover.

Care support recovery a community model

The trend in Ireland is to treat our people with medication while for a small percentage this option may work, for most it doesn't. At best the medication acts much like a life jacket, it will keep you afloat for a while but it wont teach you to swim. The cost of this drug treatment runs into millions, of millions of Euros. The only people receiving any real benefit are the multinational drugs company's and the dispensing chemist. Their are many path ways to recovery, for some it may be one of the many therapies including short term drug use, diet, exercise, talking therapies.

Bye Gone Days

There was a time in Ireland when people with mental health disorders were referred to as Gods special people. I suspect there is no one alive to day who will remember this expression. The Quaker community some one hundred years ago had a system where members of the community would come together and support their neighbor. These episodes were perceived to be a spiritual experience. While growing up in Dublin in the early sixties I witnessed a community model that worked not unlike the Quaker model.

As you can imaging mental health care in those days was not what you could call care, and more so if you didn't have the money to pay for it.

Ballyfermot which is located on the south side of Dublin came in to existence due to the housing crises. Like other cities in Ireland TB was rife, the housing stocks in the city centre where depleted, the population was growing and it was not unusual to find in the many tenement blocks ten and twelve to a room. They where a close knit community. What ever you had you shared, and so when Ballyfermot was built the people brought along not only their belongings but also their sense of community. It was here I witnessed a true recovery in the community model.

Mrs Kincade a married woman lived around the corner on Cole Park Road, Mrs Kincade should have been a film star, a tall woman with long blonde hair, the palest clear skin, her eyes were such a bright shade of blue they would remind me of a clear sky on a midsummer's day. Mrs kinkade would walk along Cole Park Road with the most beautiful scarf draped over her shoulders with its dark blues, and the palest beige with its hints of gold tinted from place to place her big broad smile was welcoming. She would stop and say hello to each and everyone of us, "how yeh Noel are yeh having fun and how is the mammy?", tell her I was asking for her. It didn't matter that she had been speaking to the mammy only ten minutes before hand.

There were the days when Mrs Kincade didn’t have her welcoming smile on, her beautiful Scarf no longer draped over her shoulders. Instead it would be pulled over her head, her eyes fix to the ground. Mrs Kincade didn’t say hello on those days and neither did we. When tea time came around we all knew John Kincade would be at our house for tea and his younger brother would be at Pat Sheridans house while his two sisters… well they would stay at Mrs Murphys, see Mrs murphy she had all girls. Mrs Hannon and Mrs Maguire, well they would take it in turns. One would cook Mrs Kincade’s dinner while the other kept the house clean and every so often they would change roles.

This would go until Mrs Kincades beautiful smile returned and the Scarf returned to its rightful place across her shoulders.

Care Support Recovery a Community model.

Palmer,Waffler Palmer.

If you would like to discuss this topic further with the Author the contcat details are:

Email: shannollaig at yahoo.co.uk

Author Details: Noel Palmer