When Will They Wake Up?

When Will They Wake Up?

As I mentioned in one of my recent blogs I was over at my son’s house watching a video about SNFU and their lead singer. Ken Chinn. This video managed to rile me up again as it showed how our mental heath system it is not doing its job. Actually I can’t blame this video for getting me angry. Even though I have been out of the mental health field for several months now I still think about the mentally ill and their plight every day. What really gets to me is that I know there are answers and solutions out there. They just need to be acted upon. I’m not saying that we can create a perfect life for the seriously mentally ill. What I am saying is that we can give the seriously mentally ill a lot better quality of life than they have now. Why are we not doing that? We are not doing that because of the politics and money that is involved. The seriously mentally ill do not have a high enough priority in our society. Our governments must be prepared and willing to spend more money or at the very least find ways to use the money more wisely. What we need is talented creative people in this field and we need to pay them what they are worth. We can no longer say we can’t afford it. If the government really wants to do something they can always find the money. The lot in life of the mentally ill could be significantly improved by increasing the staffing in residential rehabilitation facilities. I have been told that this would cost too much. This is nonsense. Adequately staffing residential rehabilitation facilities will not break the bank. If it does the budgets for the mentally ill are set are too low.

There is also the philosophy out there that residential treatment centers are not the best practice for people with serious and persistent psychiatric disorders. This too is nonsense. Yes, in a perfect world, all of the seriously mentally ill could be living independently. Reality tells us that this is simply not the case. There will always be vulnerable individuals who can benefit and can have their quality of life improved by living in residential rehabilitation treatment centers that are adequately staffed and have creative programming. Is this too much to ask?