An End To Mental Health Injustice
With a general election in motion, the Conservative party has pledged to end the inequity of the 1983 Mental Health Act and work towards an end to discrimination against people with mental health issues.
I know I wrote that it is best to leave health policy to the professionals, but this is different. The Mental Health Act is designed to protect vulnerable people and ensure that those who require it get treatment. However, there have been unnecessary detentions and sectioning under the old act.
Public protection is essential, but mental health sufferers need to be treated like human beings. Sadly, where people are not appropriately trained to work with these people there is the potential of abuse and stigmatisation. This can lead to any of the good work to treat them being lost in that they are discriminated against when they are out of treatment.
As I, and most other mental health professionals, have said, mental health is health plain and simple. There is really no need to label sufferers any more than it is necessary to label people with a broken bone. If this is to come to pass, it would appear that the government is at last looking to change the inequity of mental health treatment and move us towards a more compassionate society.
