The man that I met living rough on
the streets of Chicago was one of the many victims of the city’s mental health
service budget cuts. In 2012, 50% of the city’s mental health clinics were
closed in cuts that saved just $3 million, but negatively impacted thousands of
lives in doing so. His story was similar to many I had heard from other
homeless people around Chicago’s downtown Loop neighbourhood. An uninsured schizophrenic
who suffered from auditory hallucinations that made him paranoid and scared, he
found it near-impossible to get the drugs that he needed to control his
condition. Unable to hold down a job with such severe symptoms, he quickly
found himself unemployed and incapable of paying his rent. And then, as is the
story with so many of the mentally ill in Chicago, he ended up on the streets.
Now, his main concern is finding something to eat. The voices in his head have
not gone away. Daily, he stands on a corner next to a Swarovski jewellery store
and is ignored by shoppers as he begs for money.
The healthcare
system in the US is broken. Having dealt with it briefly myself, I was exposed
in a small measure to the mental strain of worry about medical bills. As a
fully insured foreign national I was well protected against unwanted costs, but
an ambulance ride and a trip to the emergency room still kept me awake nights
with concern that I would awake to a bill on my doorstep that I would have to
conjure up the funds to pay. For someone suffering with a long-illness that
requires extensive treatment the stress of simply affording life-saving medical
care can be too much to handle. Make that illness a mental health related condition
and the strain becomes immeasurable. Why do so many mental illnesses in the US
go untreated? Because people simply cannot afford even basic treatment. The states
cannot afford it. The federal government cannot afford it. And this is not
because of lack of money; it is because mental health is not a priority (see my
earlier blog post, The Mental Health
Crisis in Chicago).
Which is why I
am heartened to see the recent £85 million increase in mental health service
funding in Scotland. This comes at a much needed time, when a recent Care
Quality Commission review found that mental health crisis care services in the
UK are ‘struggling to cope’ with emergency situations across the UK. In March,
Nick Clegg pledged £1.25 billion to develop mental health services in England,
and yet in the context of a shrinking NHS this still may not be enough. The
same Care Quality Commission review, published in June 2015, found that 42% of
patients in emergency mental healthcare situations did not receive the
treatment they required.
Part of the
problem with mental health issues is the continued stigma surrounding them.
Illnesses such as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and PTSD are not fully
understood, and are often not considered illnesses in the same that cancer is.
When these afflictions are not treated seriously by the medical profession or
by lay people, a situation develops where it is difficult for individuals
suffering from mental illness to get help. Our NHS is the only barrier
preventing the UK from developing the same epidemic of homelessness and
criminality within the mentally ill population that is currently gripping the
US. Universal healthcare is a wonderful thing that should be protected, and in
the age of austerity we must fight more than ever not to lose this vital
lifeline.
Despite recent
boosts to mental health funding, an investigation by the charity Young Minds
recently found that over half of local councils in England had frozen or cut
funding for child and adolescent mental health budgets in 2014/15. This is the
most vulnerable time for victims of mental illness. The new Conservative
government has started positively in its rhetoric surrounding mental health
issues, with Care Minister Alistair Burt stating that “mental healthcare is
[his] priority”, but it remains to be seen what reforms will come as the new
cabinet establishes itself.
The
Conservatives have previously stood in the way of meaningful mental health
reform, with the previous Cameron government cutting many services nationwide.
However, with the coalition dissolved and the Conservative party now
established as the majority party in government a new era is beginning. Though
no bill has been put forward regarding mental health, a further £8 billion has
been pledged to fund the NHS and new mental healthcare standards have been
promised. Whether this materialises remains to be seen. As individuals we must
continue to fight for rights for the mentally ill, and continue to raise
awareness to help end the stigma surrounding these life-destroying afflictions.
And, in order to avoid us going the way of the American mental healthcare
system, we must hope that the Conservatives stay true to their word. Lives very
literally depend on it.
