Abandon all hope, young man – how it could have gone

My last blog, ‘Abandon all hope, young man’, was written very quickly following the appointment to which it referred.  I had another appointment to get to so it was my initial reaction to the meeting with the psychiatrist and was, as one can tell, very negative.  I sent a copy of the blog to the tutor I worked with last Friday and she asked me for my take on what would have been more useful to me as a service user in the meeting.  I like taking on commissions even if I’m not paid so here goes…

Before I launch into the main thrust of the blog, I suppose I had better give a little background on why I was at an appointment with the psychiatrist in the first place.  It was not a routine follow-up appointment; it was, in fact, the result of me having to chase the Grays Hall Outpatients Department for a long overdue appointment.  I had no idea how overdue until I spoke to the consultant’s secretary only to be told that it had been 13 months since the last appointment at which I was shuffled off with a promise of a follow-up in 3 months.  What makes this even worse is that the appointment back on 2 September 2011 was also the result of me having to chase the appointment up.  However, during my long telephone exchange with the consultant’s secretary, it appeared that, instead of being given an appointment with a member of my consultant’s team, the appointment in 2011 was with a doctor on the Community Mental Health Team.  He was a good doctor who promised to look into getting me a Care Co-ordinator and some one-to-one therapy as I was not getting on well with the group therapy I was on at the time.  I went away happy that day.  I should not have been.

The reason I had not been given an appointment for 13 months was because the doctor I saw had referred my case to a Care Co-ordinator in the CDAS team that deals with service users with drug and/or alcohol issues.  The CDAS team would not accept me as a client because I have not got a drug or alcohol problem (apart from the prescription drugs I take do not work and I cannot have alcohol with the prescription drugs that do not work).  Strangely enough though, I had been given a Care Co-ordinator from that team although the poor lady had no idea I was on her caseload and her team did not recognise me as a client.  My consultant’s secretary had to sheepishly tell me that they were waiting for my Care Co-ordinator to arrange a new appointment for me and that is where the problem occurred.

Of course, all of this could have been avoided if I had been copied into the correspondence between the consultant and my GP, something I had requested and signed a form for.  I had received nothing.  Why?  Because they had opened up a second file, as my notes were getting rather extensive, and failed to copy the form requesting copies of correspondence to be sent to me.

Two clerical errors had stopped me from getting the follow-up appointments for over a year so the secretary arranged for me to have an emergency appointment so I could discuss my diagnosis and my medication.  Now you are all caught up, here is the way the appointment should have gone…

First of all, the consultant did not apologise for the mistakes that had happened which would have been nice.  He also kept looking at his watch from the moment I walked in until the moment I left.  This does not help a service user who has basically been ignored by the service for over a year.

I asked the consultant about my diagnosis and why it kept changing.  I know that diagnoses do change over time but, without the explanation for why it changes, it is very disconcerting for the service user especially if they are in crisis.  My diagnosis was originally Adjustment Disorder (depressive type) and Recurrent Depressive Disorder with a differential diagnosis of Dysthymia.  The diagnosis of Adjustment Disorder disappeared after a couple of appointments and it would have been nice to have been told that the reason is that it refers to a period of reactive depression so it would not have remained part of the on-going diagnosis.  Full disclosure of the facts and reasons behind a diagnosis can really help a service user.

We moved on to the fact that my medications do nothing to alleviate my depression and the tone of the appointment took a dark turn from my perspective.  The consultant told me he was unwilling to risk using any more medications on me because he had given me, over the period I had been under his ‘care’, one drug from each of the three or four groups of drugs used to treat depression.  I have two things to say on that score – 1) the consultant was not risking anything, I am the one dosing myself up with poisons and 2) there is more than one drug per group of anti-depressants so why was he reluctant to try me on another drug or combination?

I do not like having to take medications as they are merely like using chemical sledgehammers to sort out a delicate problem, however, different drugs, even in the same group, may have different effects on a service user and one of those drugs could have helped me.  The consultant’s approach seemed to me as like being confronted by a locked door and being given a huge bunch of keys, one of which will open the door, trying two or three keys and giving up.  The result of the conversation was the consultant told me that I may just be one of those people who cannot be helped.

I was told that my ‘depression’ did not tick enough of the boxes to be considered Recurrent Depressive Disorder and he refused to listen to the other psychological problems I suffer from instead focussing on the mundane symptoms of sleep pattern and appetite.  His reasoning was that, as my current worries are due to stressors that everyone is subject to, my problem was not as deep rooted as is required by clinical depression.  The fact that mundane stressors are uppermost in my mind could be as a result of the times we live in and are not just the usual worries of life did not occur to him.  The fact that I live with the constant wish to be dead, to take my own life as I cannot bear to live any longer did not enter the conversation because he was rushing me, not taking time to get the fullest picture.  I was left with a feeling of being ignored…again.  I felt as though, because I did not fit neatly into one of the nice little boxes psychiatrists use, I was about to be cut loose from the services I rely on.  And, all the time, he was looking at his watch, obviously wishing that I was not there and wanting to hasten my departure.  If I had been given the time I needed, perhaps I may have had a different outcome.

I now have to wait for a month until the consultant has had a chance to talk things over with the therapist I had group therapy with as to whether a talking therapy would help me.  The problem I have with that is that I found it hard to engage with the group I was in because, when I did engage, the therapist did not support me as well as she could have so I closed down.  She did not back me up on the fact that humans can hold contradictory thoughts in their heads, a process called cognitive dissonance, something I am constantly at war with.  As a result, I was accused of being contrary and playing games by other members of the group.  I also showed the therapist up a couple of times by having what I contributed confirmed by other members of the group when she pooh-poohed what I had said.

My fate is now in the hands of a consultant who just wants to be rid of me and a therapist who blames me for her failings as a therapist.  What chance do I have?

I know that there is a pressure on consultants to get through a huge workload but if that means that service users are being rushed through, their stories ignored, does that really mean they are getting the service they need or deserve.  Service users are individuals with needs and feelings; they are not an annoyance or a diagnosis.  They need to be listened to, understood and empathised with so that they will get the best help available.

So, how should the appointment have gone to improve the service?  Here is my list of suggestions.

1.    Read the notes before the service user comes into an appointment.

2.    If you or your team has made a mistake, apologise.

3.    Do not keep looking at your watch during the appointment – it makes the service user flustered, makes them lose their flow and means vital information is missed.

4.    Just because a mundane stressor is uppermost in a person’s thoughts, do not make assumptions that they are the only things going on in their mind.

5.    Explain any changes to a diagnosis or the service you provide.  Even the most intelligent service user needs to have all the information spelt out to them on occasion.

6.    Listen to the service user and do not ignore bits of what they say because it does not fit into your neat little boxes.  Do not forget that new conditions can arise from not fitting into the old boxes.

7.    Exhaust all possibilities of medication before writing a person off as someone who cannot be helped.  Sometimes even the same drug but sourced from a different supplier can have slightly different effects.

8.    Do not write off a person as incurable.

Until next time…

Abandon all hope, young man

I’ve just left an appointment with my consultant psychiatrist and, although it clarified some matters, it has left me feeling more hopeless than ever.  I told the doctor about some of my personality problems, the fact that the medication seems to have no effect on me (other than to lumber me with symptoms due to side effects) and the fact that I seem to have a moveable feast when it comes to the diagnosis I am given.

I’m unsure whether he really heard the personality problems I told him about because he seemed more interested in the more mundane issues – sleep pattern, appetite, etc. – and, in my opinion, the personality problems are where my depression and anxiety are born and raised.  However, he’s the expert.

The question of diagnosis was covered by the psychiatrist saying that a diagnosis is based on what I bring up in the appointments and most diagnoses are subject to change.  This is a given and something I already knew but it would have been nice to be told that ‘Adjustment Disorder (depressive type)’ is another way of saying ‘a period of depression brought on by an event’ or ‘reactive depression’.  The other diagnosis of ‘Recurrent Depressive Disorder’ is now being questioned for some reason although being somewhat drowsy from my medication, one dose of which I kept around to demonstrate the sedative effect on me, I didn’t really get what the problem was.  The doctor did say though that the fact I was on two anti-depressants was unusual for someone in my case and showed that they were willing to take medical risks to help me although I’d think that I’m the one taking all the risks.

The doctor was unwilling to change my medication because I’ve had medications from each class of medication and they haven’t helped.  He didn’t say it in these words as such but the gist of the conversation was that ‘sometimes we just can’t help everyone’ and that it may be a fact that I may just have to live like this for the rest of my life.  That revelation could well be too much for me to bear; however, I will continue to go on until I have the psychiatrist’s final decision, supposedly in a month’s time.

I will be worrying every minute of every hour of every day until I get that final decision, worrying about how that decision will affect my access to services and benefits that I rely on.  All I know is, those words ‘sometimes we just can’t help everyone’ will be echoing around in my head, haunting me.

My latest contribution to society

Not that everyone would agree but I have contributed to society a bit over the last few days.  I attended a Standards Committee meeting for the local adult college on Wednesday evening to help towards the driving up of the quality of provision that Thurrock Adult Community College provides.  I actually said quite a bit at the meeting so I suppose I am finally getting a little more outspoken than I have been in the past.  Of course, that could be due to my blog writing for Your Thurrock and my decision to go on the war path since January this year.

On Thursday, I attended a meeting of the SUCI Advisory Group at Anglia Ruskin University in Chelmsford.  The group advises on service user and carer involvement in the education of social care students and the main thrust of the meeting was to come up with a response to a consultation on behalf of the university.  OK, it wasn’t really much of a contribution to society because the meeting kind of drifted away from the point a couple of times, the consultation response could not be satisfactorily completed as some of the questions related to a document we did not have a copy of and the agenda had to be shortened because of all the side-tracking but it was still worthwhile going.

Yesterday, I was back at Anglia Ruskin on a brilliant placement talking to social care students about what it is like suffering from depression and what helps and/or hinders my progress.  It was really nice to be listened to and respected by both the students and the tutor.  I hope they all got something out of the ‘lecture’ and I hope that they take to heart the stuff I told them about not letting the system rob them of the connection to their humanity when they deal with people with mental health issues.  I suppose that I must have done something right as the tutor told me that some of the students came up to her during the comfort break and told her how much they liked hearing things from a service user’s perspective.  The tutor also asked if I’d be up for a return visit to discuss feedback on the one man show I put on.  Damn straight I would!  And I got something out of the experience too – a comment that the tutor made about family roles in relation to my case really hit home and could actually be the missing piece in the mystery of why I became depressed in the first place.  It is so strange that I have been in two therapeutic groups and yet it is a simple comment that may finally have helped me find the answers I have been looking for.

Well, I have got a nice lazy weekend to look forward to before it is back to Chelmsford for the first public meeting of the new mental health service user and carer involvement and peer support organisation that I wrote the proposal for over the course of a year.  I am not sure how many people are coming but the meeting is simply the core group unveiling the plans to the public in the hopes of getting some support from the mental health community.  At least one mental health commissioner will be coming to the meeting and I have been told that the local service provider wants the new organisation to feed directly into their own service user involvement work so, although we are nowhere near ready just yet, things are looking up.  All we need now is a determined bunch of volunteers to help us set up and some funding either in cash or in kind.

And I am finally going to confront my psychiatrist on Wednesday on a number of issues that have never really made much sense to me regarding my diagnosis such as the fact that the diagnosis keeps changing from appointment to appointment among other things.  Oh well…

Until next time…

The relative value of voluntary work

During a rather pointless debate with a guy on Twitter, he made the most scurrilous claim – that voluntary work is only of value if it is performed by someone who is in paid employment.  What a disgusting thing to say!

If you ask the Employment and Vocational Services department of my local mental health provider, SEPT, you would get a rather different view.  Indeed, one of their aims is to try and get people into paid employment, voluntary work or an education course.

Some would say that voluntary work performed by someone on benefits is of more value because the only resource they have in abundance is time.  A person in paid employment has the luxury of not having to struggle to find money for their next meal or new clothes or travel expenses or rent so their time, limited though it may be, is free of worries.  A person on benefits struggling with the issue of day-to-day survival who gives up some of their time in the pursuit of helping others makes that pursuit much more valuable, both for them, the people they help and society as a whole.

It is a fact that the UK is dependent on volunteers – from litter picking to vital services such as carers – and, if the view that only people in paid employment provide valuable voluntary service becomes more wide-spread, those on benefits who perform vital functions on a voluntary basis will stop doing so, causing the UK to grind to a halt.  I was once a carer for my Grandma.  I was not paid to be her carer and there was no real reason for me to undertake such a role as my mother was her carer and there were employed carers from the local authority.  There was an emotional reason for undertaking the role of carer and an in-built moral reason but I could have refused if I had wished; however, I did not shirk my responsibility.  I am quite sure that my mother and my Grandma valued my voluntary efforts and I am quite sure that, if I had not made the effort, the financial cost of providing care for my Grandma would have been extremely high so I am sure society would value those efforts too.

A voluntary worker on benefits gets paid a damn sight less money than a paid worker would cost society to undertake the same duties so it is only safe to assume that their work is of value to society.  If nothing else, someone, regardless of their employment status, undertaking voluntary work is fulfilling their role in Cameron’s vision of The Big Society, a vision that asks people to run services for nothing on a voluntary basis because the Government has not got the money to pay people to do the work.  The Big Society is a financially bankrupt society run by a morally bankrupt administration that get paid more in a year, individually, than most people on benefits will get in a decade.  The least a voluntary worker on benefits deserves is the respect of the society they serve.

Until next time…

A weird turn of events

The most weird thing happened to me recently – I became a ‘professional’ (for want of a better word), although still unpaid, journalist with a news item I wrote regarding the presentation of a report to Thurrock Council’s Audit Committee being posted on the Your Thurrock website.  I got my own ‘by line’ and everything.

I have to admit that it was not my best work but due to the over running of the meeting, there was not a lot for me to write about.  I am, however, rather chuffed that my ‘boss’ thought it worthwhile posting at all.  I also have to admit that it was not my first ‘by line’ as such but it was the first one that was for a purely news piece.  My blog on Your Thurrock means a lot to me and to see my name on the site makes me feel a little pride but it is really just me putting my opinion across whilst annoying as many people as possible.  Having a ‘straight’ news item posted makes me feel more like a ‘proper’ journalist.  Not bad for a man with no journalistic qualifications and is merely an enthusiastic amateur.  I have to say that that single posting has done more for my self-esteem than anything has in recent memory.  It is a kind of ‘professional’ validation, even if it was only posted because it was needed to fill up space on the Your Thurrock website.

That said, however, I am a little upset that I was not able to provide a more riveting read.  The piece did not exactly contain any revelations or ‘big break’ moments and, in that respect, my regular blog column is more fulfilling as it provokes debate, polarises the public into their political camps and I am either liked or loathed based on what I wrote.  My critics love to hate me and hurl accusations of me being a left-wing supporter.  And I love it!  Quite frankly, I do not care whether people like me personally or not and the back and forth of insults and accusations between my critics and myself gives me a little thrill.  I also like making people think about things in a different way, whether they end up agreeing with me or totally disagree.

I do not know whether I will ever be asked to cover another news story in the future, all I know is that it was nice to be asked this time and to have my efforts rewarded with my first ‘professional’ ‘by line’.  It is something I can add to my portfolio of work so I will take it for the gift it is and dream of future offers.

http://www.yourthurrock.com/2012/09/21/2-million-care-costs-scrutinised-by-audit-committee/

Until next time...

The biggest crime

This entry is my latest submission to Your Thurrock although I somehow doubt it will be posted (for obvious reasons) so I have decided to post it here - just in case.

Following my enforced break from this column, due to putting work in on trying to set up a new project for mental health service users and carers in Essex, I have returned to expose the biggest crime perpetrated in the UK.  I like to believe that my column always makes my readers think and this column will do so by presenting you with some questions and some definitions in order to engage you actively in the process.  About 99% of my readers will be astute enough to work out where this piece is going before I get to the destination, but for the 1% who cannot, I will spell it out in big, bold letters at the end that you will be able to see all the way from One Tree Hill.  Let us begin…

Question: Is it acceptable in a civilised society to accept crime directed at a specific group of people based on gender, age, religion, sexuality, ethnicity or physical or mental disability?

Definition: Crime – an act that is against the laws laid down by the government of the country.

Fact: Slander is a crime.

Fact: Libel is a crime.

Fact: Incitement to hatred of a group based on their gender, age, religion, sexuality, ethnicity or physical or mental disability is a crime.

Definition: Disability – any physical or mental problem that affects an individual’s day-to-day life.

Definition: Hate crime – an act that is directed at an individual or group based on the victim’s gender, age, religion, sexuality, ethnicity or physical or mental disability; to persecute an individual based on their gender, age, religion, sexuality, ethnicity or physical or mental disability.

Definition: Persecute – (1) subject (a person, etc) to hostility or ill-treatment; (2) harass, worry.

Question: Should a civilised society allow crime to go unpunished?

Now we have set the scene with our questions, facts and definitions, we shall start our journey in earnest, filling in extra facts and posing extra questions as we go…

The current administration of this country, the Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition or ConDums (yes, I did mean to call them ConDums), in the interests of cutting the budget deficit, have instituted the largest plans for public spending cuts in living memory.  These cuts affect many of the people who rely on welfare benefits to survive day-to-day.  Nowhere is this more keenly felt than in the people who are reliant in disability and health-related benefits.  The ConDums, however, allow the richest people and companies in the country to get away with tax avoidance on a huge scale and refuse to institute a ‘Robin Hood’ tax on banking transactions all of which would obviate the need for such savage cuts to the welfare budget.

Question: Who should carry the burden of deficit reduction plans – the rich or the poor and most vulnerable?

Part of the welfare shake-up involves taking claimants off benefits such as Incapacity Benefit and putting them on Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), which has two sub-groups – the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG) and the Support Group.  In which group a claimant is placed in is determined by putting them through a Work Capability Assessment (WCA) by a company called Atos, who have no healthcare experience but who are paid approximately £150 million to administer the WCAs.

Fact: The changeover from the old benefits to the ESA is highly cost-laden.

Fact: The WCA has been proved to be ‘not fit for purpose’ for those claimants whose ‘disability’ is a mental health problem.

Fact: A high proportion of WCAs have resulted in a successful appeal overturning the findings of the WCA, costing the country money in legal expenses.

Fact: Calls are being made with the express intention of getting the WCA criteria changed so that they are deemed fit for purpose.

If a claimant is put into the Work Related Activity Group, the claimant will be asked (or forced, depending on who you ask) to undertake activities in order to prepare them for getting into work, some of whom will actually be unfit for work due to their disability but wrongly declared fit for work by the WCA.

Fact: If a person fails to comply with a work-related activity, their benefit will be reduced or temporarily withdrawn.

Question: If an individual has to stop a work-related activity due to their disability, how are they expected to survive on reduced or no income?

Fact: The Government plans to cut the benefit of a disabled claimant by £71 per week for failure to comply with a work-related activity.

Fact: Plans are being put in place so that the disabled and those on health-related benefits will be forced to do unpaid work placements for an unlimited time. 

Fact: People claiming JobSeekers Allowance (JSA) are only expected to work in unpaid work placements for three months.

Of course, all of this is academic as the Government are proposing to abolish ESA and all other benefits and combine them all under the umbrella of Universal Credit (UC) at a huge expense to the country.

Fact: Proposals for Universal Credit are, at present, vague and ill considered.  They are also, at present, highly prejudicial to people with disabilities and health-related incapacities.

The ConDum’s austerity measures have barely begun to bite with currently mentioned figures being mentioned of only 6% being made so far and the Government is, in fact, increasing the budget deficit rather than reducing it.  The UK is in the grip of a full-blown double-dip recession, something the austerity measures was meant to prevent and yet the ConDums have given tax breaks to the rich and fail to collect the vast amounts of unpaid/avoided tax money.  The poor, on the other hand, are bearing the brunt of the cost of an economic disaster not of their making and the disabled and those on health-related benefits are being hit the hardest.  All the while, companies are failing causing more unemployment to add to those in the publicly funded sector who lost their jobs due to cuts in public spending.

Fact: One of the victims of the austerity measures was an organisation called Remploy, a company that employed hundreds of disabled people.

Question: Why have the public accepted such prejudicial tactics to be used against the disabled and those on health-related benefits?

I will answer this question for you.  The public have accepted such measures because they have been subjected to hours and hours of ConDum propaganda designed to make the public think that the disabled and those on health-related benefits are the cause of the problem rather than the victims.  They are seen as leeches on the belly of society, sucking away millions of pounds from the public purse.  By demonising the target group, the public are less concerned with the affect the cuts to public spending are having on that group.

Fact: For an extended period, Iain Duncan-Smith and Chris Grayling have demonised the disabled and those on health-related benefits in the media.  David Cameron allowed this.

Due to the highly prejudicial view of the disabled and health-related benefit claimants promoted by the ConDum administration, the levels of hate towards those groups has risen and will continue to rise in the future.

And so we reach the case against the ConDums on the charge of the greatest disability hate crime in the UK.

“If it pleases your Honour, based on the evidence presented above, I would like to proceed with the case for the prosecution of Her Majesty’s Government on the charge of hate crime against the disabled and health-related benefit claimants of the UK.

It has been established that hate crime is wrong and unlawful.  It has further been established that slander and libel are crimes and that persecution of or incitement to hatred of an individual or group based on gender, age, religion, sexuality, ethnicity or physical or mental disability are likewise crimes.

On behalf of my clients, I wish to submit the following evidence -

Fact: According to Government statistics, less than 1% of claims for health-related benefits are fraudulent.

Her Majesty’s Prime Minister has allowed speeches and comments of a highly prejudicial nature to be given by certain ministers of his administration giving a view of my clients as being work-shy or fraudsters.  This amounts to slander against 99% of my clients.  These speeches and comments have made their way into the printed media, which amounts to complicity in spreading libellous statements about 99% of my clients.

Further to these charges, the current and planned legislation of Her Majesty’s Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition Government are highly prejudicial to my clients as are the cuts to public spending that are currently underway.  I refer, of course, to the closing of Remploy establishments, the excessive punishments incurred for failing to comply with work-related activities and the unlimited duration of unpaid work placements for disabled/health-related claimants.  These amount to persecution of my clients.

Finally, thanks to the slanderous and libellous statements, my clients have been seen as figures to be hated by the rest of society.  It is true that many held this view before the current administration took power but the statements given by Ministers of the Crown have acerbated the problem.  This amounts to a hate crime against my clients, made even more offensive as it is against a group who are among the most vulnerable in society.

I submit to you that the current Government of this country is guilty of all charges and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

The case for the prosecution rests.”

Fact: David Cameron called himself a ‘compassionate Conservative’.

Question: If Cameron really is compassionate, why would he allow such disgusting tactics and policies to be used?

There are other regimes who probably have similar hostile views of the disabled and those with health-related incapacities although one springs to mind immediately – the Nazi Party of the 1930s and 1940s.  If you were disabled in any way, physically or mentally, your life expectancy was not going to be long.  You would not have been sent to the gas chambers with the Jews who were mercilessly persecuted but your life would have been curtailed in some other way – lethal injection.  Like the Jews, Romany gypsies and homosexuals, the mentally and physically challenged were persecuted as not being Aryan material.  They were demonised by the Nazis and turned into figures of hate, much like the disabled and health-related benefit claimants of the UK today.  At least, however, Hitler and his party were open in their hostility and did not hide behind the lie of trying to help the vulnerable whilst enacting legislation designed to kill them.

Fact: There have been many deaths directly attributable to the changes and cuts in welfare benefits for the disabled and those on health-related benefits.  A lot of them have been covered in the media.

With so many deaths directly attributable to benefit changes, perhaps we should add manslaughter or murder to the list of charges against this Government.

Things are not going to get any better whilst we have a corrupt, dictatorial regime in place that will push through legislation regardless of its detrimental effect on the citizens it is supposed to protect.  How can you call this a dictatorial regime, you may ask; it was democratically elected.  So was Hitler, I would counter.  And he had a greater share of the vote than the Conservatives did in the last General Election.

For some dark reasoning, the ConDums have it in for the disabled and those on health-related benefits.  The economic strategy that was built on adherence to austerity measures has failed.  The economy is in decline where under Labour it had started to grow.  The ConDums have no plan for economic growth and Cameron has been recorded as saying that he sees no end to the austerity measures that were originally meant to last only five years, the longest term for austerity measures in living memory.  The Government is increasing the deficit it had promised to get rid of within its five-year term.  The ConDums strategy seems dependent upon convincing the Great British public that the disabled and health-related benefit claimants are the cause of all the ills the UK is facing whilst letting the rich prosper and avoid paying their due taxes.

Why are the rich being molly-coddled?  Because they are the ones who vote Conservative and because they are the ones who are in power.  Why are the poor and disadvantaged being hurt the most?  Because they have no voice.  The people in the middle-income bracket hate the poor and disadvantaged because they fear becoming poor and disadvantaged themselves and because the ConDum administration instils hatred towards them to ensure their monstrous plans go ahead unchallenged by the public. 

The only step that Cameron and company have not taken is the one where the State institutes a campaign of forced euthanasia against the mentally and physically challenged – yet.  One wonders if this is to be the next step in the persecution of the disabled and health-related benefit claimants though.

Anyone for a waterless shower?  Cameron’s Final Solution.

Until next time…

Letter to Jackie Doyle-Price (MH debate)

Below is the full text of my latest letter to my local MP, Jackie Doyle-Price.  I shall, of course, post any reply I get - right here on my blog!

Dear Ms Doyle-Price,

I am writing to you, as my representative in Parliament, asking you to attend the debate on mental health due to be held on Thursday 14 June.  Mental health is an important issue for society with one in four people falling foul of some kind of mental ill health.  This is, I believe, a very conservative estimate, as there are many people who fail to seek help due to the stigma and discrimination associated with mental illness.  I, myself, have experience of mental ill health, having suffered with major depression for the last 34 years.

My illness came upon me at the age of seven years old and I was left undiagnosed until I was 26 when I had a breakdown at work.  My full diagnosis is Recurrent Depressive Disorder and Adjustment Disorder (Depressive Type).  I have been out of work since a further crisis came upon me in 2005.  I have not, however, been idle in that time, having undertaken courses and voluntary work to improve my job prospects and to keep busy.  Unfortunately, the voluntary work I have undertaken to make me more employable has made me toxic to most employers because I cannot hide my mental health problem from them as prospective employers can Google my name and find video clips and articles associating me with mental health.  The statistics bear out the fact that most employers would turn me down for a job even if I were the best candidate and that mental health sufferers are the group who are the least likely to be in paid employment despite being the group who are most eager to find work.

You may not have experience of depression yourself and it is difficult to express how it affects a sufferer to someone who is not a sufferer but I will try to do so.  Imagine how you would feel if you had lost someone very close to you, now imagine that feeling magnified a thousand times.  That feeling never leaves me for a single moment and, on top of that, add the feeling of utter hopelessness you would feel if you saw someone you loved dying very slowly and painfully.  Imagine all of that with the feeling of utter darkness and despair and the feeling that things will never improve no matter how hard you try to make them change.  That is depression.  That is what I, and many others, have to live with.

The following list covers the points most needing of being covered in the debate (in my opinion):

• Mental health service
• At the moment, mental health services are at their most needed and, therefore, need more funding to cope with the demand; however, they are being forced to make cuts they can ill afford to make.  Mental health has always been the least well funded sector in the NHS and will probably always be the poor relation because most mental health service users are the least likely to make a fuss.
• In Thurrock, Grays Hall has the highest staff turnover in the whole of the region covered by SEPT, the local NHS provider.  High staff turnover means that the service suffers and is a key indicator of a sick organisation.
• Giving more money to the mental health service providers will actually save money as there will be fewer suicide attempts and fewer hospitalisations due to better community-based care.
• Benefits
• The changes to the benefits system and the associated cuts in the welfare budget are causing a huge amount of fear, stress and anxiety to people already in a highly sensitive state of mind.
• Every brown envelope that comes through the letterbox only heightens the fear that a mental health service user feels.  These people already struggle to survive day-to-day on what little welfare they receive and the thought of losing even that lifeline is almost paralysing.
• There are very few, if any, people with mental health issues who are getting more than the very basic amount of money on welfare and considerably less than someone on the National Minimum Wage.
• The fear, stress and anxiety generated by the changes and cuts in the benefits system will only make the mentally unwell less able to find paid employment.  This will end up costing the country more in NHS treatment and benefits than it will save with the proposed cuts.
• The Work Capability Assessment
• The WCA has been unanimously condemned by GPs as not fit for purpose as it is heavily weighted towards physical disabilities and takes little, or no, account for the mental health issues that are just as debilitating but are unseen.
• Many mental health service users are being found able to work by the WCA but are soon back on benefits due to a crisis brought on by work.
• If the WCA is not changed to reflect the debilitating nature of an individual’s mental health problem, the strain on the mental health service will be even greater as more and more people fall to mental ill health.
• Stigma and Discrimination
• Funds are needed to educate the general public and employers about mental health problems so that the stigma and discrimination faced by mental health service users is dispelled.
• The media need to be encouraged to portray people with mental health issues more realistically and with fewer negative stereotypes.  This needs to be supported by Government.
• Employers should be encouraged to employ people with mental health issues and to offer flexible working hours, time off for hospital and therapy appointments and offer in-work support.
• The Disability Discrimination Act does cover people with mental ill health but it does little to protect them properly because it is so easy for employers to find other excuses to get rid of mentally unwell employees or to deny an opportunity to an unemployed person with a history of mental ill health.

These are only a few of the issues that need to be debated on Thursday.  I hope you will attend the debate and put some of these points across on behalf of all the mental health service users in your constituency.

I am happy to talk to you about any of these issues with you should there be any other future Parliamentary debates on this subject.

Regards,

Myles Cook