Patients with schizophrenia in Britain are too often locked up in
"mad house" institutions that are more likely to make them worse than
better, mental health experts said on Wednesday. In a damning report on how
people with the severe mental illness are cared for in Britain, the experts
said there were "catastrophic failings" in treatment and described
"shameful" standards of care on some mental health wards.
The problems arise and are exacerbated in part by public misconceptions
that schizophrenics are crazy, violent people who pose a risk to society, they
said. "In this country we've become preoccupied with the idea that
schizophrenia means a madman with an axe," Robin Murray, a professor of
psychiatric research at Britain's Institute of Psychiatry, told reporters as
the report was published.
The reality, he said, was that the vast majority of people with
schizophrenia were not violent and were in fact more likely to be victims of
attacks than to lash out at others. He said Britain could learn a lot from
countries such as Switzerland, the Netherlands and Denmark, where health
systems focused on getting patients with schizophrenia into calm, caring
environments, rather than spending limited funds on unnecessary security and
less appropriate treatment.
Schizophrenia affects around 24 million people globally, according to
the World Health Organisation (WHO). Patients can suffer from psychotic
experiences such as delusions, paranoia, or hearing voices. Although there is
no cure and relatively little is known about its causes, there are many
medicines and therapies that can treat some of the most serious symptoms. The
WHO estimates the costs of treating someone with chronic schizophrenia can be
as low as $2 a month. But across the world, including in developed countries
like Britain, many patients have limited access to treatment. The WHO says more
than half of all schizophrenia sufferers do not get appropriate care.
"ABANDONED
ILLNESS"
The British report, which described schizophrenia as "the abandoned
illness", found that nursing and other healthcare staff working in
schizophrenia services in the country's state-funded National Health Service
were often demoralized and "burnt out" and that "pessimism
pervades the system".
It was written by a panel of mental health specialists known as the
Schizophrenia Commission who heard evidence in person from 80 experts and
people affected by the illness, and from 2,500 more who gave evidence online. It
said mental health hospital wards were often such appalling places they made
patients worse rather than better. "If you develop psychosis and your mind
is disturbed ... and you think people are against you, you'd want to be
admitted for a period of care and respite and calm and some gentle
pharmacological and psychological treatments," said Murray. "But in
fact that doesn't happen. Here, you get admitted to a mad house. And some of
these places are very anti-therapeutic - not only for patients but also for
staff. No sensible person would want to be admitted to one of these
places."
Paul Jenkins, chief executive of the charity Rethink Mental Illness,
said it was a "scandal" that in 2012 people with schizophrenia were
dying 15 to 20 years earlier than the general population and that only 7
percent were able to get a job. "Too many people are falling through the
gaps in the system and ending up in prison or homeless," he said. An
analysis by researchers at the London School of Economics (LSE), which formed
part of the report, estimated schizophrenia cost the UK 11.8 billion pounds
($18.7 billion) a year in "societal" costs including care and
treatment, as well as loss of employment, tax revenue, unpaid care and
premature deaths. aMartin Knapp, professor of social policy at LSE who carried
out the analysis, said too much was spent on expensive types of care - secure
units - and not enough on trying to prevent schizophrenia and provide community
support for patients.
Source: Chicago Tribune
Please share
No comments:
Post a Comment