Stalinist health care for the mentally ill

British "Care in the Community"

The closure of long stay mental hospitals started under Margaret Thatcher. A new strategy of “care in the community” was introduced. Many chronically mentally ill, semi-institutionalised patients were turfed out onto the streets. As always the schizophrenics suffered the most. The promised community psychiatric nurses did not materialise and the patients were left to wander the streets.

An army of bag-ladies and tramps.

New Labour is extending this policy to hospitals that used to admit patients who had acute mental illness. It is closing psychiatric wards across the country. Wards that were providing a place of safety for the acutely mentally ill.

As always it is being done in the name of improving health care. Not a mention of cost-cutting. The government waxes eloquent. The mentally ill do not wish to be in hospital. They prefer to be treated at home, in "the community". If you had seen the average psychiatric ward in a British hospital, you would not want to be on it either.

A doctor from Hertfordshire sends me this:

Click to enlarge

Bastards.

“The number of council houses is being reduced so that Hertfordshire Partnership Trust can provide more damp and dirty bed-and-breakfast bed-sitters, run by unscrupulous profiteering landlords, for unmarried mothers and their children.”

Lying bastards.

“The number of in-patients beds is therefore being gradually reduced so that Hertfordshire Partnership Trust (HPT) can provide more treatment for people in their own homes.”

Crisis Intervention Teams are composed of non-medically trained amateurs who are incapable of carrying out a proper psychiatric assessment. They fill in their tick-sheets and almost invariably discharge the patient. They are a barrier to mental health care. GPs can no longer get their patients seen by a psychiatrist, unless of course they can pay to go privately.

Dr Crippen despairs. No wonder I could not get David into hospital. He did not want to be dumped, sorry "treated, at home.

Read the handout carefully. But do not make the mistake of thinking that this is only happening in Hertfordshire. This is national government policy. This is Patricia Hewitt.

This is New Labour.