Mental hospitals -v- Care In the Community

[Tony]

Mental health problems manifest in many ways, from family crisis to aggressive street drunks.

 

For sure, Middlewood Hospital and it's ilk weren't perfect 20 years ago but mental hospitals / institutions* generally ensured that folk were within a safe environment with dedicated staff and resources.

 

Is it time for a new generation of institutions that can cater for people with modern standards of care and medicine, but away from the general public?

 

 

 

 

 

 

*I'm using common vernacular for ease of understanding - don't use it as an excuse to get pointlessly offended.

[wednesday1]

Mental health problems manifest in many ways, from family crisis to aggressive street drunks.

 

For sure, Middlewood Hospital and it's ilk weren't perfect 20 years ago but mental hospitals / institutions* generally ensured that folk were within a safe environment with dedicated staff and resources.

 

Is it time for a new generation of institutions that can cater for people with modern standards of care and medicine, but away from the general public?

 

 

 

 

 

 

*I'm using common vernacular for ease of understanding - don't use it as an excuse to get pointlessly offended.

 

 

 

 

I would agree completely Tone, but wasn't it your heroine, acertain Lady Milk Snatcher who closed down the old institutions like Middlewood as part of the Cons 'care in the community' which turfed thousands of people onto the streets, who couldn't look after themselves, in the 1980's?

[Tony]

That's not the topic. Let's keep party politics out of this eh?

 

I've posed the question -whether you think that a new generation of institutions is a good idea?

 

Do you?

[GrapeApe]

Better treat people in the real world where they will live their lives than in institutions.

 

People who need acute psychiatric care still get it in hospital.

 

People with chronic problems deserve to be supported by society, not locked away from it.

[Moonbird]

I voted for care in the community as an ideal and what I would like to see...sad to say that it doesn't happen though or not very well, there needs to be a lot more money thrown at this, well there needs more for all aspects of care in mental health.

[Plain Talker]

there should have been a third choice (At least) for "Both are needed".

 

Some people need care in the community, and could manage without the intensity of being in a hospital environment. Others, especially if they are in crisis, may need the more intensive scenario of a hospital.

 

There is room for both.

[ratter71]

Sheffield has several mental health "institutions", the concept of mental health care didnt disappear with the closure of middlewood

[I1L2T3]

there should have been a third choice (At least) for "Both are needed".

 

Some people need care in the community, and could manage without the intensity of being in a hospital environment. Others, especially if they are in crisis, may need the more intensive scenario of a hospital.

 

There is room for both.

 

What Plain Talker said

[Mr Bojangles]

there should have been a third choice (At least) for "Both are needed".

 

Some people need care in the community, and could manage without the intensity of being in a hospital environment. Others, especially if they are in crisis, may need the more intensive scenario of a hospital.

 

There is room for both.

That's very true.

 

There are also plenty of people currently in community placements who struggle because their disability makes it very, very hard for them to deal with change and new environments/faces/experiences/challenges. They need a routine that they can trust and be comfortable with, which can be provided within an institution (albeit a well-managed one with dedicated, sensitive staff).

 

In too many cases the push to give people the 'right' to be in the community does little to enrich their lives and actually makes them more stressed and more likely to revert to problem behaviours, compared to staying in their comfort zone in an institution they know and understand.

[I1L2T3]

That's very true.

 

There are also plenty of people currently in community placements who struggle because their disability makes it very, very hard for them to deal with change and new environments/faces/experiences/challenges. They need a routine that they can trust and be comfortable with, which can be provided within an institution (albeit a well-managed one with dedicated, sensitive staff).

 

In too many cases the push to give people the 'right' to be in the community does little to enrich their lives and actually makes them more stressed and more likely to revert to problem behaviours, compared to staying in their comfort zone in an institution they know and understand.

 

There needs to be a balance. My dad was a manager in one of the big old mental hospitals in the North West. They weren't always the nicest places but like you say for a lot of residents they became their home and they felt safe. The balance is to make these places a home without over-medicalising them - my dad always commented about wards full of long stay, passive patients looked after by nurses in uniforms. He could never understand why the nurses had to wear uniforms on those kinds of wards.