Do the carers really care?
By Robert Allen
THERE IS AN ILLNESS in modern Ireland that dare not speak its name. It is characterised by a professional attitude and a public image, but rarely is a diagnosis asked for by those who suffer it. It is known by a variety of names. It affects most of us intimately and indirectly.
Yet society does not want to deal with it. The only members of society who benefit from it are those who make careers out of it. While this may be hard on those health professionals who profess to care about their fellow humans, the evidence indicates otherwise. This illness is mental illness, madness to you or me.
This week a friend of mine (we'll call her Sinead) was told to leave one of the prestigious psychiatric hospitals in the 26 Counties. She had been there for three weeks and was doing well. They gave her a pass out and for some reason that she cannot honestly explain she went on a drinking spree.
Nothing wrong with that. Sure, don't we all do it from time to time - except we are all not `mad'. We are all not classified as mentally ill. We are all not manic depressives, schizophrenics and psychotics.
The mistake she made was to stop taking her anti-depressants while she was on the bender. This, apparently, sent her deeper into depression. By the time she came back into the hospital she was in pieces. The health professionals in the hospital grounded her. One day she was low risk; a few days later she was high risk - because she was a danger to herself! They took away all her privileges. And I mean everything. She wasn't even allowed to have a picture of her godchild by her bedside. Then they told her she had to leave because she was a danger to other patients.
This is also an interesting concept. Sinead is in depression. This is an Irish woman who was once and perhaps may still be good at her job.
For many years, she had suffered from depression. The break-up of a relationship didn't help. She came home to Ireland, got some serious drinking done and sank deeper into the pit of her despair.
Instead of seeking to understand her problems, the authorities, the health-care specialists, the educated, diagnosed her as someone with a chemical imbalance in her brain. They put her on a dose of tablets and dismissed her as mad - someone that only they could cure. Then when she flipped they administered the punishment.
You would think that these health professionals would understand this illness because, after all, this is what they are trained in. Instead, they make a judgement. You are to blame, they say. You have a done a bad thing, they say. You have fallen apart and gone drinking and we will punish you. We will pump you full of pills and lock you up in the high-risk unit. We don't need straight-jackets and white-suited thugs anymore, we can reduce you to a state of powerlessness with our drugs. So there!
In private and state hospitals and in daily life there are people who have been trained as health carers, yet their attitude would indicate that they either don't care or don't understand the illness they are supposed to be treating.
It would be too much of a generalisation to say that the carers don't care. In modern Ireland it appears that we look to the Anglo-American model for guidance on how to treat the mentally ill. In Europe, significantly in the Italian city states, the mad were not excluded from society. By contrast with the Anglo-American model, an effort was made to understand their problems.
Isn't it time those who call themselves health professionals think about their role in society? Isn't it time we called a spade a spade?
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