In a New Orleans courtroom one afternoon this April, three federal appeals court judges questioned a lawyer for the country’s largest health insurance company. They wanted to know why United Healthcare had denied coverage for a 15-year-old girl named Emily Dwyer, whose anorexia had taken such a toll on her body that she had arrived at a residential treatment facility wearing her 8-year-old…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
I work as a medical social worker in the infectious diseases clinic, working primarily with patients who have been diagnosed with HIV and AIDS. I help my patients navigate Kaiser’s complex health care system, get access to needed resources, and figure out how they can afford a life-sustaining medication that often costs thousands of dollars per month.
I see firsthand how Kaiser’s mental health system is failing these patients. It’s nearly impossible for them to get access to timely mental health care, and because Kaiser treats its therapists like assembly-line factory workers, so many therapists get burned out and leave.
The post Kaiser Strikers Say When Therapists Burn Out, Patients Suffer appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
The journey that led Anita Adalja, a 42-year-old queer South Asian farmer, to enter the agricultural field began when they were 25, living in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Adalja worked as a social worker in supportive housing, trying to finish graduate school, and felt like they were in over their head. Along with their coworkers, they would often go to the roof of the supportive housing building…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
On its website, social media, and adverts across the net, mental health support line Samaritans boldly proclaims its proud strapline:
We’re always here to listen.
However, when reaching out to the service, one caller found that this isn’t actually in fact the case. Now, the person who reached out to Samaritans has flagged the policy she came up against to the Canary. This was one that the charity does not well publicise – and that caught her out in a moment of crisis. It’s crucial information for people that rely on its service.
In short, the Samaritans has a policy to block telephone numbers for 30 days after a certain length or volume of calls – leaving people at risk
However, more than that – it also raises significant cause for concern from a crisis helpline that can be the difference between life and death for its callers.
In 2023, Samaritans answered more than 3.3m calls for help. It means that volunteers took a call every ten seconds. The organisation’s impact report for the year also detailed how it had spent more than 900,000 hours talking to people by phone, email, online chat, by letter, or in face-to-face settings at its branches, in prisons, and local events.
Of course, the enormous volume of calls the charity fielded from people in distress comes amidst astronomical numbers of people awaiting access to NHS mental health services. This currently sits somewhere north of a million people, although the NHS doesn’t currently provide definitive data on this.
So, this article isn’t to overlook the dedication of Samaritans employees and volunteers, and the essential service they provide to people going through mental health crises.
However, an under-publicised policy a caller brought to the Canary’s attention does warrant scrutiny. And at minimum, the caller felt it’s something that the Samaritans should be more transparent about to those utilising its service.
What’s more, it’s a policy that in the context of these protracted NHS waiting lists for mental health support, could be putting vulnerable people at significant risk. It’s therefore critical the public are made aware of this.
At the same time, it’s necessary to explore how the Samaritans is operating under flawed neoliberal-rooted assumptions prevalent across mental health services that have compounded harm for people living with serious trauma.
Disabled campaigner Helen Timson lives with complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) and acute stress. She has regularly accessed the Samaritans service support in moments of need and told the Canary that it had:
been my life line for many years.
But, when she made a call to the telephone service one day, it was not the usual friendly voice of a Samaritans volunteer who greeted her. Instead, a pre-recorded message relayed to her:
We’re concerned about the length of time this number has spent in contact with Samaritan volunteers in the last thirty days. We would really like to talk to you about how best we can support you.
The automated response proceeded to direct her to the caller support team at the Samaritans central office. But notably, contact times for this were limited between office hours 9am to 5pm on Mondays to Fridays. After detailing how she would need to get in touch with the team, it stated that:
Otherwise, the restriction will remain in place for thirty days.
Helen immediately issued a complaint to the charity. Initially, it sent her a generic response that failed to address her multiple concerns about the policy itself. After a second response that once again broadly ignored her main complaints about the existence of the policy, the caller support team finally sent an email with more information. It explained that:
It sounds like you have hit one of our restrictions on your number – we do understand that it can come as a shock to hear one of these messages when you’re not expecting it, and we appreciate you getting in touch.
Phone numbers, which are restricted in relation to call volume, are picked up on an automatic system at Samaritans Central Office if they have made over a certain volume of calls or spent over a certain amount of time talking to volunteers. The current threshold for Talk Time is currently set at 20 hours over a rolling 30-day period and the threshold for Volume of Calls is 100 calls in a rolling 30-day period. Telephone numbers are also picked up and restricted if a call has been logged by volunteers as Contacts Not Tolerated by Samaritans.
Understandably, Helen was shocked at this response. She told the Canary that:
I was appalled to learn of this dangerous Samaritans policy, which I believe is all about cost-cutting. This policy not only betrays the wonderful people who volunteer and donate to the Samaritans but also undermines their slogan, ‘There is always someone here to listen.’ It seems that slogan should come with a caveat: ‘Unless we have barred you for needing to call us frequently.’
However, it was the harm that this could cause to other callers that alarmed her most of all. She went on to express this concern to the Canary, saying:
I challenge the Samaritans to produce a single mental health expert willing to state that this policy helps 100% of those affected and puts zero lives at risk.
Of course, Helen is right to raise this point. People reaching out to the Samaritans could also get caught out by this policy just as she did. Given that people use its telephone line in moments of distress, this could add to people who are experiencing mental health crises isolation during times of extreme vulnerability.
And notably, what the organisation came back with only compounded the issues with the policy. Specifically, the Samaritans’ reasoning for it raises a number of red flags. The customer support team told Helen in an email that:
It is our experience that calling very frequently or spending many hours talking to volunteers via the helpline may increase someone’s dependency on the support we provide, the more someone becomes reliant on our support, the more we see their contacts increasing. We have seen that us having the chance to speak to someone at the earliest opportunity about our concerns may help to reduce this risk, and to ensure we provide an appropriate level of support within the boundaries of our service which is both helpful and sustainable going forwards.
Of course, there are some distinct problems with this.
For one, the response indicates that the Samaritans policy seems to make the assumption that people making multiple calls within a month are becoming dependent on its service. Given that Samaritans will be fielding calls from people with a wide range of different mental health problems, the one-size-fits-all assessment simplifies what could be a multitude of factors for people repeatedly accessing its service.
Many are likely to be on the NHS’s long waiting lists for mental health services. Others may be socially isolated – and the Samaritans the only safe, accessible service people feel comfortable turning to.
The Canary found examples online of other people whose numbers the Samaritans had blocked for a thirty-day period for exceeding its thresholds. One conveyed how the Samaritans suddenly cutting off support had made them feel “lost and suicidal”. The person detailed how the Samaritans had been vital emotional support since their severe social anxiety had prevented them from seeking in-person professional therapy. This was from a post in 2018 – suggesting that the policy has been in place for some time.
Another – from October 2024 – expressed how she felt like “a piece” of her “safety net” had been taken away from her. Worse still, she described how someone from its customer support team who’d called her to explain she’d phoned its helpline too much, “didn’t seem to care” that she’d been using its service more frequently due to grief at her mum’s recent passing.
On a more practical level, the call number limit could also pose problems in a number of ways. Someone else who’d hit the limit highlighted that for them, poor mobile phone service had meant she often had to phone back multiple times. In this way, she’d quickly hit the 100 call threshold within thirty days. Besides this, it also doesn’t take into account shared landlines or mobile phones, meaning different people could be using the same number.
Of course, these are just the people who’ve opened up about their experience online. There are likely to be many others who’ve gone through the similarly traumatic situation with the Samaritans policy too.
Moreover, the Samaritans reasoning also appears to rest on a problematic, ableist Western psychiatric approach which pathologises patients’ so-called dependency on mental health services.
In particular, this revolves around a number of controversial theories, including:
In these ways, the negative concept of dependency is ableist towards chronically ill and disabled people.
Western glorification of individualism and independence over collectivism and interdependence also influences this mental health model which negatively pathologises dependency. Alongside this, it lacks cultural sensitivity. In the context of these Western social ideals, mental health services over-pathologise people whose cultures celebrate interdependency – such as those with Asian heritages.
And notably, this controversial idea of dependency is something that NHS mental health services have applied to various services. These have weaponised patients’ supposed ‘dependency’ to withhold care – and have particularly wielded against people diagnosed with personality disorders. In these contexts, it’s also part of a neoliberal model of healthcare which emphasises reducing services for cost-saving purposes.
A 2022 report into the mental health services for borderline personality disorder (BPD) patients under the Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Trust encapsulated this:
The notion of ‘avoiding patient dependency’, as promoted by services, is most certainly not being used in a manner supportive of patients, rather, it is more than likely an attempt at chicanery to covertly ration resources and withhold care from “undesirable” patients.
Unsurprisingly, there are also dangers to withholding this care. Mental health service survivor, activist, and researcher Wren Aves has explored the neglect of people labelled with a BPD diagnosis. Crucially, Aves has summed up the immense risk of withdrawing or withholding mental health care or support, writing that:
Discharge from services or a reduction in care, sympathy, compassion and understanding from
staff in response to the perception of patient dependency is well-documented and can be seen
as a form of malignant alienation, increasing distress and the risk of patient suicide
Ultimately, Aves pointed out that this paradigm in mental health services is based on the perverse premise that withholding support to avoid dependency, is:
helping keep their patients safe… as if their patient being dead is somehow a better outcome than them relying on healthcare services for support.
At its most basic level, this model views mental health patients with frequent need for support as a problem, rather than people understandably needing help.
It seems entirely out of step with the Samaritans ethos of always being there to listen. Yet, this stigmatising, harmful model appears to form the basis of its contentious, largely hidden policy.
This was fairly evident in the rest of the customer support team’s response to Helen. While it explained how the policy was sometimes to signpost callers to external organisations that would be “better suited to support them”, it also described how “if felt appropriate” the Samaritans would:
discuss/offer a support plan whereby we may call a caller on agreed days and times; if this is agreed, then we would ask that the caller does not call helpline themselves as we want the support to be consistent and focused within the parameters of the support plan.
All callers on a support plan will be encouraged to create the content of the support plan with us so that it helps the caller from having to repeat their story, they will also be offered a copy for future reference. Frequent reviews will take place during this time between the Caller Support team and the caller to ensure the plan continues to meet the agree aims, which is ultimately to get a caller back to being able to self-manage their contacts within the boundaries of the service.
In other words, it places a strong emphasis on autonomy and personal responsibility as positive outcomes from withholding its usual 24/7 support. But it’s based on largely bunk behaviourist theories that perpetuate myths of this neglect serving to empower patients, when instead it can actively put them at risk.
The Samaritans seemed unwilling to publicise this policy more openly. Helen had suggested at minimum that the charity should give advanced warning to frequent callers they could fall foul of this call limit. The customer support team said only that:
We have considered this possibility ourselves but unfortunately our telecom system does not have the capability to do this at the moment so currently we are not able to make this change.
Since the Samaritans essentially doubled-down in defending its policy, Helen decided to submit a complaint to the Charity Commission. However, she once again came up against a brick wall. In particular, the commission determined that the complaint was outside its remit, since it:
cannot take up individual complaints like the one you have raised about poor service from a charity.
Moreover, it told Helen that it had:
been unable to identify wider safeguarding or governance concerns.
Overall, Helen has contested that it does in fact present significant safeguarding concerns. What’s more, the commission’s email detailed that:
When making our decisions, we consider the issue and look at the risk to anyone who comes into contact with the charity, along with the risk to the charity itself.
However, the commission didn’t seem to take into account how the Samaritans policy could be putting people at risk. Given this, she has escalated by raising a complaint about the commission itself. To add insult to injury, the email also seemed to indirectly recognise the impact the policy had on Helen, writing that:
I understand that this must have been a challenging and distressing time for you. In your correspondence you have made reference to your mental health and I would encourage you to seek additional support if you require it – for instance, by visiting your GP or local authority to see what assistance is available in your local area.
Yet, this is of course ironic in the context of people reaching out to the Samaritans due to the inaccessibility of the very local support the commission referred to.
The Canary reached out to the Charity Commission for comment. It told us that:
After receiving a complaint about Samaritans’ helpline policy, we assessed the information provided and determined that this is a matter for the trustees of the charity. We take all concerns raised with us seriously and so should we receive any new information we will assess this in line with our published framework.
However, Helen articulated to the Canary her frustration over the regulator’s seeming inability to take action as part of its legal duties and role. She expressed that:
if they won’t take any action about this, then why do they even exist?
Ultimately, the Samaritans provides an essential service to huge numbers of people across the UK. However, this policy and the basis for it could be putting some callers at risk. It also undermines its message that people can call at anytime, and Samaritans will always be there to listen. In reality, that isn’t the case for some who regularly reach out for its help.
In response to the Canary’s questions over this policy, executive director for operations at Samaritans Lis Skeet said:
Samaritans answers a call every ten seconds and we need to make sure our volunteers are available to help as many people as possible. People who call us very frequently tend to need more dedicated support than we can offer and so we ask that they speak to our specialist team who will help to meet their needs within the boundaries of our service. However, we regularly review caller thresholds and will be doing so again next year.
The Canary also spoke to Dr Iain Caldwell, director of mental health organisation Making Sense Of about the Samaritans policy. He questioned the underlying reasoning the Samaritans had provided for it:
The important question is, what’s on offer? It’s a listening service – established to deal with people in crisis, experiencing isolation and distress.
The fundamental issue is a severely disconnected society, reduced social contacts, loss of community and an over reliance on institutional services that view a person as having something wrong with them.
Whereas we need to move towards a relational, asset based approach, that activates the persons inner resources and capabilities.
How does the Samaritans approach the problem? Where’s the mutual aid and peer support? Why didn’t the good service evolve, organically? How does it learn and grow? These are all the questions we should be asking.
On the dependency premise, he told us that:
From a well-being perspective, relational by definition is two way. This builds understanding and wellbeing. Mattering is adding value and feeling valued. Therefore it’s human to be dependant on each other. If someone is lonely or isolated, then there is a story behind that plus a need for human contact. Maybe we should be looking a little deeper at the underlying factors, then address them.
The Samaritans 2023 report noted that in a quarter of calls, people expressed suicidal feelings. So, by not being transparent about its policy, it could very well be endangering people’s lives. Given this, Samaritans should take Helen’s calls to review this controversial policy very seriously. Whether it will do so remains to be seen.
Featured image via screengrab
This post was originally published on Canary.
At least six Israeli soldiers have taken their own lives in recent months, the major Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth has revealed, citing severe psychological distress caused by prolonged wars in the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon as the primary cause, Anadolu Agency reports.
The investigation suggests that the actual number of suicides may be higher, as the Israeli military has yet to release official figures, despite a promise to disclose them by the end of the year.
The report highlights a broader mental health crisis within the Israeli army.
Regional tension has escalated due to Israel’s brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 44,000 people, mostly women and children, since a Hamas attack last year.
Thousands of soldiers have sought help from military mental health clinics or field psychologists, with approximately a third of those affected showing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
According to the investigation, the number of soldiers suffering psychological trauma may exceed those with physical injuries from the war.
The daily cites experts as saying the full extent of this mental health crisis will become clear once military operations are completed and troops return to normal life.
About 1700 soldiers treated
In March, Lucian Tatsa-Laur, head of the Israeli military’s Mental Health Department, told another Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, that approximately 1700 soldiers had received psychological treatment.
Since October 7 last year, reports Anadolu, Israeli military is alleged to have wiped out families in Gaza, pulverised neighbourhoods, dug up mass graves, destroyed cemeteries, bombed shops and businesses, flattened hospitals and morgues, ran tanks and bulldozers on dead bodies, tortured jailed Palestinians with dogs and electricity, subjected detainees to mock executions, and even raped many Palestinians.
Exhibiting sadistic behaviour during the genocide, Israeli soldiers have taunted Palestinian prisoners by claiming they were playing football with their children’s heads in Gaza.
Israeli troops have live streamed hundreds of videos of soldiers looting Palestinian homes, destroying children’s beds, setting homes on fire and laughing, wearing undergarments of displaced Palestinians and stealing children’s toys.
In their mission to “erase” Palestine, Israeli troops have killed a record number of babies, medics, athletes, and journalists — unprecedented in any war in this century.
But, said the news agency, now it’s coming with a cost.
Australia bars former minister
Meanwhile, former Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked has been banned from entering Australia over fears of “incitement”.
Shaked, a former MP for the far-right Yamina party, was scheduled to appear at a conference hosted by the pro-Israel Australia Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC).
However, the Australian Department of Home Affairs told the former minister on Thursday that she had been denied a visa to travel to the country under the Migration Act.
The act allows the government to deny entry to individuals likely to “vilify Australians” or “incite discord” within the local community.
Speaking to Israeli media, Shaked claimed that her ban was due to her vocal opposition to a Palestinian state, reports Middle East Eye.
She has also previously called for the removal of “all two million” Palestinians from Gaza.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
For years, it was a mystery: Seemingly out of the blue, therapists would feel like they’d tripped some invisible wire and become a target of UnitedHealth Group. A company representative with the Orwellian title “care advocate” would call and grill them about why they’d seen a patient twice a week or weekly for six months. In case after case, United would refuse to cover care…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Content warning: Saffron’s story around autism, ARFID, and the NHS may be distressing to some readers. It includes commentary on food, eating, mental health, and suicide that some readers may find triggering and extremely distressing.
After recent political events that have left the world even more unstable, or rather (as some of us call it) we witness the last desperate cry of Western capitalism, many of us are left wondering where this will leave us. What will happen to us?
As we look at British politics, many of us were pleased to see the change to a Labour Party government following 14 years of austerity under the previous Tory government. The discovery of a massive black hole in the country’s finances, however, has left many of us feeling like nothing’s going to really change.
The much-needed changes to our once proud NHS are looking like less and less of a reality. From the completely inaccessible Change the NHS campaign that many patients have struggled to complete (if they knew about it anyway) to the recent drive to change patients’ rights under the Mental Health Act that shows the complete disregard of Autistic patients in those settings in the first place – people are wondering what these changes really will be.
Will they ever actually highlight the years of neglect that many of the NHS’s chronically ill and disabled patients continuously face?
Moreover, will any of this make a difference now?
But crucially, will any of this help people like Saffron now?
Saffron is a young Autistic woman who lives with OCD and avoidant restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID). She is currently being held against her will at Southport Hospital, Lancashire, under Section 3 of the Mental Health Act, due to years of repeated neglect, misunderstanding of her medical conditions and her autism, and a lack of support to live with them. Saffron explains all in this video:
@autisticinclusive Please meet Saffron – a 25 year old autistic young woman, with OCD, arfid, and a history of sexual abuse. She is currently on a section 3 in Southport and Formby District General Hospital. Saffron presented herself at A&E on the 3rd of October willingly, as she recognised how dangerous her weight was, having dropped to 47 pounds, which is 3 stone 5 pounds. After waiting overnight, she was placed on a ward and sectioned within 1 hour, despite her showing understanding of the severity of her condition, and being accepting of treatment. She was immediately tubed, even though she begged to be allowed to eat food, or even drink supplements. Saffron is now 4 stone 1 pound in weight, and wants to have the choice to be able to eat food instead of being forced to have a meal plan via an NG tube. She finds the sensory experience of the tube in her throat and the pain in her stomach unbearable. She loves food, and it is one of her special interests, and she just wants the chance to have an oral meal plan and put on weight that way, but the doctors in charge of her care refuse to even trial this less restrictive approach. Saffron has said that even though she has a community team diagnosis of arfid, the psychiatrist in charge of her care has disregarded this and is treating her as if she has anorexia. She has been told that she is ‘just trying to avoid food’ and that they have ‘seen it all before’. Currently, Saffron is not allowed to go outside in a wheelchair to have fresh air, is not allowed to leave her room, is on 24/7 1:1 care without privacy to use the toilet, and is made to wear mitts on her hands at night to stop her pulling out her tube, even though she has not pulled it out before. She has been restrained and sedated multiple times when she has tried to resist the NG tube and asked for food instead. The invasive and violent nature of the tube and the treatment she is recieving ignores the trauma that Saffron deals with day to day from abuse she has experienced previously, and is having an extremely damaging impact on her mental state. The doctors have planned for Saffron to go to a specialist eating disorder unit when they feel she is ready, even though she has had 11 previous admissions to these places, and each time has experienced very standardised treatment with no accomodations for her autism, and no understanding of arfid compared to anorexia. Saffron is not resistant to gaining weight – she just wants a chance to gain weight through eating food, and to be treated like a human being. She wants to get to a stable enough place as soon as possible so she can continue her weight gain in a safe, supportive community environment; either a supported living residential, or at home with her mum. Please support Saffron in being given appropriate treatment, and put an end to this abuse of the mental health act. Her treatment is not the ‘least restrictive’ option and does not consider her individual needs. It has taken away all her hope for the future and left her feeling scared, isolated, and unable to cope. Saffron deserves the chance to gain weight through eating, and when stable she needs to be back in the community – not in an eating disorder hospital that cannot provide the right support for her.
You can sign Saffron’s petition by following the link below:
https://www.change.org/p/get-saffron-into-community-treatment
Saffron told the Canary that she had been admitted to eating disorder units on and off her whole childhood, with a diagnosis of anorexia. She found safety in them and the support and routine they offered – so entered a cycle of admission-discharge-relapse that continued up until she reached adulthood.
At the age of 19 years old, while at university, Saffron was abused. She then began to suffer from severe anxiety and found that her sensory coping mechanisms, executive function, and need for routine became a lot more important but harder to manage, leading to her previous ARFID issues amplifying greatly. Her weight plummeted.
Adults units were a different experience because Saffron’s eating disorder had changed, and they did not provide the specialised care she needed. They could not provide a personalised approach that targeted the drivers of Saffron’s ARFID and supported her to cope with the trauma she had experienced.
Furthermore, the standardised ‘set up’ was extremely distressing, often forcing Saffron into a ‘panic mode’ or shutdown, resulting in her feeling, upon discharge, less able to cope with life than before.
This led to Saffron avoiding units altogether, with the support of her mother at home.
Unfortunately, Saffron’s ARFID issues (still misdiagnosed as anorexia at this time) meant she was unable to gain weight, though with she was able to avoid any further loss. She completed her degree and worked as an accountant, but she also began to realise a passion for helping people. Saffron spent much of her free time passionately volunteering for autism and mental health charities, and then decided to do a conversion masters in nursing.
Unfortunately, Saffron was forced to leave her course due to her low weight and was told she needed to have a Mental Health Act assessment.
She was sectioned and admitted to Southport Hospital for the first time around three months ago.
During an eight week admission, Saffron gained weight, and the hospital let her go home. She found the admission difficult, but not as traumatic as unit admissions, as she was allowed her own food and could keep some of her routines.
However, this wasn’t the end of the story.
Saffron stopped engaging with some NHS services upon discharge. Saffron said this was because she felt pressured and scared, after they had threatened her with tube feeding If she didn’t put on enough weight. She hadn’t gained as much weight as they wanted her to, and she didn’t want to keep lying.
She felt helpless: she wanted support, but didn’t want to be sectioned again.
With hesitation she reengaged with her community team and felt understood when, after years of being treated under a diagnosis of anorexia or EDNOS, finally got a correct diagnosis of ARFID, and her previous diagnosis retracted.
Her team asked her to be honest about her weight, and promised her 7-14 days in the community and that she would not be sectioned if she was honest. Saffron, finally believing she could get the support she desperately wanted, put her trust in them.
Sadly, this is not what happened.
When Saffron went in to be weighed, doctors sectioned her – and she has been in hospital ever since, under a Section 3, where she is undergoing incredibly restrictive treatment.
Her preferences and concerns are dismissed, the complexity of her conditions is ignored, and often actions taken seem contrary to the ‘least restrictive approach’ which is a core part of the Mental Health Act.
The Act’s code of practice asks that patients are central in their treatment and involved with decisions, and that, for Autistic patients, discharge planning occurs immediately upon admission. It also describes how important it is that autism specialists are involved, or staff are appropriately trained in autism when supporting autistic patients. The code of practice also explains how restrictive practices can, for people with autism, lead to a spiral of challenging behaviour to express distress, and then further restrictive practices, and more challenging behaviour to express even more distress.
Yet this guidance seems to be completely ignored by those providing Saffron’s care.
The doctors and staff fail to understand Saffron’s ARFID, or her perspective as an Autistic woman. She is being force fed and finds many of her autistic needs or difficulties being perceived as mental health issues which need changing, rather than accommodating or managing.
Saffron told the Canary:
I’m not allowed any fresh air, even if I’m in a wheelchair – in fact, I’m not even allowed to leave my room. For a few days I wasn’t even allowed to open the window.
I even have to wear mitts every night, and I am often restrained even when I am posing no harm to myself or others. Everything feels so scary and confusing.
I’m also on a constant one-to-one, in case I pull out the feeding tube. And I admit, on the second day I was here, I cut it out. Because I thought they might give me a chance on food if I did. When the tube was reinserted straight away, I realised this wasn’t the case, and I haven’t touched it since. But even after six weeks, they won’t take me off one-to-one or give me a trial of food. I can’t crochet because I took my crochet hooks away because apparently, I could pull out the tube with them, even though I never ever tried anything like this. Without my hobbies, I feel lost. I’ve lost everything in my life that I have.
Food is another one of my special interests. Since I was four years old, I collect certain foods. I have all the wrappers of any new varieties that come out of them. I do food reviews too. I love food, and every year I do my Christmas reviews. As someone who’s autistic, that’s kind of my thing that I do every Christmas. And now I can’t do it. And it’s the most frustrating thing and makes me even more upset about tube feeding.
It feels so wrong and unfair, particularly when I’ve put on a lot of weight. I’ve put on 14lb since I’ve been here. And I could be doing it through food and enjoying it. And doing my reviews.
These are the mitts doctors forced her to wear:
She feels isolated as her family live a five-hour drive away in Buckinghamshire. And worst of all – the hospital is saying that they want to discharge her to a residential eating disorder unit, which is completely inappropriate for her needs. She has had ten previous admissions, all of which have physically restored her weight in the short term, but led to relapses and worsening of her mental state.
Saffron told the Canary:
Eating disorder units are the worst places in the world. They can’t cope with people who have a different routine. It’s just a feeding farm. They just feed you. [Autistic] people have special food preferences, and they don’t understand my ARFID.
It’s not a good environment for me to be in. I need a place where they’re going to help me holistically understand my problems and treat me as an individual. And I think I do need to have some control over food and routine because that’s sustainable and would help me transition home.
In an eating disorder unit, I end up without my routine and the things that make me feel comfortable. In the unit I just do as they say and then as soon as I leave, inside I’m raging because I can’t cope with it. I completely lose myself in eating disorder units.
Saffron’s case is yet another gross misuse of the Mental Health Act.
The medical doctors who see her say that Saffron is physically stable and would like her to have a chance with food – and potentially go home. However, the psychiatrist in charge disagrees – and is treating her like she has anorexia, despite her ARFID diagnosis. They say things to Saffron like “we’ve seen this all before”, “we know what people like you do”, “you’re just trying to get away with not eating” – which, given Saffron lives with AFRID, is just not true.
Saffron has tried to challenge her sectioning and how the hospital is treating her. She has exhausted all avenues with PALS – which in most hospitals is not fit for purpose. Saffron has been to the CQC, which dismissed her situation. She has a hospital-appointed independent advocate who has failed to support her.
This is Saffron’s most recent email to her Southport Hospital team. She does not get replies and has been told she won’t, but was reassured they do read them:
This is an email Saffron previously sent to PALS:
Saffron is now having suicidal ideation, and even made an attempt on her life while in hospital which led to increased restrictions. This was not because of mental health issues, but because of the fact that she doesn’t know what else to do to get the support she needs.
Let’s be clear: it is the health service’s treatment of her over the years that have led her to this point – from misdiagnoses to inappropriate autism care via the incorrect psychologisation of her conditions.
She feels things will not change – and that being in Southport Hospital is just making the situation worse for her.
Commenting on Saffron’s situation, Joseph Redford from the Neurodivergent Labour group told the Canary:
It is appalling that in the 21st century, neurodivergent people are still being treated this way. The Labour party needs to use its mandate to reform healthcare and treatment for neurodivergent people so that our needs can be met and human rights respected.
It is unclear what will happen next to Saffron. Without her family, hobbies, or appropriate and safe support from Southport Hospital, her situation is terrifying.
Emma from the grassroots group Autistic Inclusive Meets (A.I.M) has been supporting her. She told the Canary:
Saffron is being given no autonomy, and no say in her healthcare treatment plan.
She is not allowed out for fresh air.
She is not allowed food.
She is not allowed to leave her room.
She is restrained and force fed, and when she let me know the desperate measures she felt she might have to take, it was not only horrifying to us that she felt so low, but it was also devastating that such unconscionable medieval methods are being used on her and understandable why she feels there’s no way out.
Saffron is being treated like a puppet, a body with no rights.
It cannot be allowed to continue.
Saffron is not asking for a lot, in the grand scheme of things. She wants to be listened to, for her treatment to be appropriate for both ARFID and autism, and to simply be supported – not dictated to.
Saffron summed up by saying:
I know I need help. I have never had support for the sexual abuse I have been through, and for years I have been treated for a now-changed misdiagnosis of anorexia, which has, in turn, only made my difficulties even more complex, and left me institutionalised. But I want to be treated like a human and to feel supported.
I want to find my personality again. Eating disorder units have damaged me and made it harder for me to manage in the real world, and my treatment most recently feels like it has reduced me to an empty shell, completely lost and unable to cope.
I feel in constant shutdown from the complete overwhelm of the last six weeks.
I need clear goals, plans, understanding of sensory issues, routine, and adapted communication. I need people to listen. I wish my team had worked with me thus far and given me support, rather than stereotyping me, ignoring my feelings, and actively excluding me from my care, and taking away anything that keeps me comfortable or makes me feel safe.
I can’t take away what has happened, but I want to be going home with intensive support or to go to a residential unit that specialises in autism and complex mental health. A place where I can truly get better.
This is the third case the Canary has reported one where young Autistic women who also live with ARFID have been detained by doctors who have weaponised the Mental Health Act against them.
It shows a gross level of negligence in terms of patient support and safety.
These cases also display that the Mental Health Act safeguards are not fit for purpose.
But moreover, Saffron and others’ situations show the NHS is incapable of managing ARFID – and wilfully obtuse when it comes to supporting Autistic people.
Change is needed – and quickly. Whether or not Labour’s ‘reforms’ to the NHS and the Mental Health Act deliver any of that remains to be seen.
Please sign and share Saffron’s petition here.
Featured image supplied
Additional reporting via Steve Topple
This post was originally published on Canary.
“The hostility has always been there,” Paul told me. “But I feel like it truly began to ramp up like 2020.” A 16-year-old student at a large public high school in a large Texas city, Paul (a pseudonym to protect his safety) is a varsity athlete with aspirations to join the FBI. But in 2020 he was still in middle school. Texas wouldn’t pass its first anti-trans bill — a sports ban on trans…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
As many of the most mainstream mental health, autism, and learning disability charities praise the new Mental Health Bill – reforming the 1983 Mental Health Act – going to the House of Lords this week, it feels like there should be true cause for celebration in a way that many psychiatric survivors may not be experiencing.
Of course, there are aspects of the proposed reforms that are extremely important changes if they are done well – people in mental health crises should not be held in cells, and families and carers should have more rights and greater involvement. Most of the reform bill looks good on paper – but does it begin to go far enough?
There are currently 2,020 Autistic people and people with learning disabilities in inpatient mental health hospitals in England, with the average stay at 4.8 years (via National Autistic Society & NHS Digital). Many will be held unnecessarily or in inappropriate settings, and it is severely evident that something needs to be done.
However, it is also clear that the Mental Health Act reforms are likely not going to fix the issues at hand.
As an Autistic ex-inpatient, I should in theory be celebrating the changes to the reasons and ways Autistic people and people with a learning disability can be detained.
But is it right to celebrate that we will not be able to be detained long-term on the basis of our autism or learning disability, when we can be if we have a co-occurring mental health condition?
Why is it that it is still seen as appropriate to detain in inappropriate settings if someone has other mental health needs? And what about the thousands of people whose autism has gone undiagnosed (and often stays so throughout an inpatient stay), or who are misdiagnosed with a personality disorder?
It is extremely difficult to agree that this reform actually changes much for Autistic people or people with a learning disability when psychiatric spaces are so extremely hostile as a sensory and social environment – and even a 28 day section (section 2) can be a cause of severe trauma, let alone considering those who will still be held long-term.
Most units are extremely bright, loud, and do not have enough staff training on autism or learning disabilities to support us. We are more likely to experience physical or chemical restraint and seclusion due to biases and misunderstandings about our needs and communication.
Jon Sparkes, the Chief Executive of Mencap, said in their press release that the reforms are key to “placing new duties on commissioners to ensure the right community support is developed” – but there is little to no mention of community support in the release from the Department of Health and Social Care, especially concerning autism and learning disabilities.
Many reach crisis point because they have been consistently failed and unsupported, and there feels like there are no moves being made to change these inequalities in the home, in schools, or in communities.
Psychiatric units are not not set up to be spaces for proper recovery, they are for holding and policing. Incarceration often causes trauma and iatrogenic harm (harm experienced by patients during medical care) is rife, seen by many as part and parcel of the experience.
Many psychiatric units in the UK have little to no therapies or recovery-focused support in them, showing the lack of care for real recovery over simply holding people – and there’s no real notion that this would change under the reforms.
These are spaces with huge power structure issues, where levels of restraint, seclusion, and overmedication are extremely high, particularly amongst marginalised communities including Black people and Autistic people.
Although inequalities Black people face have been mentioned as an issue – being over three times more likely to be detained and 11 times more likely to receive Community Treatment Orders – there has been little to no discussion of what is actually being done around this as part of the reforms.
The way that the Mental Health Act and its potential reforms are about detainment and psychiatric inpatient care means changes are being made in a bubble not accounting for the significant lacking we see in community care.
Although there has been some commitment to crisis care in the budget, the National Survivor User Network notes how little notion we have of how this would look, and there is still little to no attention to preventative care, recovery-based support, or long-term community needs.
How do we truly change how mental health care looks when someone has to fall into crisis to get anywhere?
As an ex-inpatient I have spent years advocating for people to stop being unnecessarily detained or placed in psychiatric settings, but I have learnt that there are so few alternatives set up, and if hospital is inappropriate, people are abandoned and left to fall further into crisis.
We often see imprisonment, deaths by suicide, and families struggling to cope, ultimately begging for something, anything that would give them some support. Keeping people out of hospital is only the beginning, but it is seen by much of the system as the job complete.
You cannot make it part of the law that all patients must have a proper care and treatment plan without committing to significant new levels of funding, nor can you when you are not doing anything to change the staffing crisis.
You cannot say that mental health patients will not be held in police cells when so many biases around addiction, psychosis, and ‘suspicious behaviour’ exist.
You cannot stop detaining Autistic people but not increase funding for sensory support, bespoke care, or neurodiversity-affirming supported living.
In the official press release about the reforms, Claire Murdoch, NHS national mental health director, said that this reform is a “once in a generation opportunity”.
If that is the case, it must go further and do more for psychiatric patients and survivors.
There must be a proper commitment to funding the changes, or this will be another set of reforms that never manifest themselves, with inequalities perpetuated for decades to come.
We can pretend that the reforms will be enough – but where is the true care for dignity or human rights?
Where is the real commitment to not leaving people locked up?
Featured image via the Canary
This post was originally published on Canary.
On Wednesday 6 November, the government announced major reforms of the Mental Health Act.
The bill focuses on keeping people in psychiatric hospitals against their wishes. We don’t think this bill will stop us from being locked up, abused, tortured, treated inhumanely, and left to die through neglect in psychiatric hospitals.
The new bill will introduce a 28-day limit for detention for Autistic people and people with Learning Difficulties who do not also have a mental health condition.
But many of us are given another diagnosis or label that means we can still be detained for a long time. Or we are not formally recognised as being Autistic or having Learning Difficulties. We don’t think this will stop us from being locked up.
Having Statutory Care and Treatment Plans for us will have limited impact if mental health professionals still have the power to lock us up, for years on end, without a release date.
Increasing numbers of young people are being detained and we face widespread prejudice. It will take more than just involving more patients, families and carers to change this.
Free Our People Now would welcome a Mental Health Bill that is in line with our UN human rights as Disabled people. This would focus on stopping us being locked up in the first place and keeping us out of psychiatric hospitals for good.
We need a bill that focuses on giving people with Learning Difficulties and Autistic people the right to the support we need, to live great lives in the community.
Our Bring People Home From Psychiatric Hospital network has created a list of Government Asks for what we need to see in the Mental Health Bill, to stop us being locked up and help us to thrive in our communities. It has been signed by 27 organisations.
Free Our People Now is a project led by Autistic people and people with Learning Difficulties, to get us out of psychiatric hospitals.
We are a part of Inclusion London, which is a Deaf and Disabled People-led Organisation (DDPO). We support other DDPOs across London and nationally, and campaign for change.
Featured image via the Canary
By The Canary
This post was originally published on Canary.
This article was written by me (Ginger Gorman) for the publication Women’s Agenda in my capacity as a freelance journalist. It’s republished here with full permission. You can read the original here.
So far, I’ve had three reminders from my GP clinic to make an appointment with my doctor. This is as a result of getting an ECG and having my bloods done in order to check one of the medications that I’m on isn’t affecting my heart.
Even though I love my GP, I haven’t made the appointment yet. Before you write to me with alarm and concern. I know. I will make the appointment soon. As soon as my bank balance allows, that is.
Last time I went to the GP to sort out some lady issues, it cost me $220 for a “long” GP appointment. Of course, some of the cost was Medicare rebated. But I still didn’t have enough cash left in the bank account to put a full tank of petrol in the car on the way home.
Compared to many Australians, I earn a decent income. I’m lucky. And yet I’m still a sole parent paying a huge mortgage alone. A mortgage that’s gone up 13 times and is a grind to pay each month. There’s no longer any financial buffer.
I’m not alone in delaying medical treatment. According to a new paper, based on ABS data from 2022-23 and published by the Medical Journal of Australia, “…many Australians struggle to afford the medicines they need and…cost barriers to access have increased” compared to the year before.
But it’s women who are most impacted. The report’s author, healthcare policy and bioethics expert Dr Narcyz Ghinea writes: “The data show that 9.4 per cent of women compared with 5.5 per cent of men reported cost-related non-adherence to medications…prescribed by their general practitioner in the previous 12 months.”
In plain English, many more women than men are not filling or delaying filling medication scripts due to cost.
He then goes on to say that the situation is even worse for younger women. Nearly 15 percent of 15–24-year-olds and to 13 percent of 25–34-year-olds are affected by financial pressures which result in them not taking medications.
Dr Narcyz Ghinea notes that in reality, the numbers of women not taking medications due to cost is likely much higher because of the huge percentages of women who didn’t actually go to their GP or specialist in the first place.
The paper states 8.4 per cent of women “at least once delayed seeing or did not see a general practitioner and 12.2 per cent…at least once delayed or did not see a specialist due to cost.”
Again, this was much higher for younger women. A little more than 11 per cent of women aged 25–34 years delayed or didn’t see a GP at least once, and more than 20 per cent of that same cohort delayed or did not see a specialist due to cost.
Polly is a 49-year-old single mum from regional NSW who works for herself more-than-full-time to stay afloat financially.
She says: “I have absolutely delayed visiting the doctor and the dentist due to cost. I have put my kids in for appointments, but my own health care has become a last priority.
“Once, my daughter had a procedure done at the GP for an infected toenail and I had had to save up to get the appointment scheduled, and when I went to pay it was $100 more than I quoted. I didn’t have the money and just burst into tears then cried all over the service manager!”
When I threw out a question on my social media channels to ask women if they had delayed or avoided medical care due to cost, dozens of women responded. There were some recurring themes:
Susan, 39, falls into this last category. She tells me: “I often have to choose which pills I will buy and which I’ll go without.
“Specialist care is largely out of reach for me because of costs involved, despite the fact that my chronic illnesses would benefit from specialist advice. My teeth are also cracking as a result of these conditions, and I cannot afford to remedy the situation.”
Dr Danielle McMullen is president of the Australian Medical Association. She acknowledges more Australians are “skipping filling their medication or delaying a visit to the GP” and worries about the long-term impacts.
“We know that delaying care can lead to poorer health outcomes which is why it’s so important to seek care when you need it.
“Addressing poor Medicare Benefits Schedule [MBS] rebates for long consultations will improve some of the gender inequity inherent in the MBS,” she says.
On the upside, Dr McMullen notes that there have been some relatively recent policy changes – which the AMA pushed for – and these is likely to have a positive flow-on effect: “[I]t’s important to note that the data in this report are from before the tripling of the bulk-billing incentives and 60-day dispensing policies commenced.”
(Heads up! Not everyone is a fan of 60-day dispensing.)
Dr McMullen also points to structural healthcare issues that compound the issues for some cohorts of women: “Efforts to eliminate systemic discrimination and improve access to healthcare for marginalised groups of women are imperative.”
As examples, she points to racial disparities in maternal mortality rates for First Nations women and underscores the need for “…culturally competent care for Indigenous women.”
“Healthcare systems should provide comprehensive care that addresses the specific needs of women at different stages of life, including preventive screenings, reproductive healthcare, and support for healthy aging,” she says.
The post Women’s health at risk: The cost of delayed care appeared first on BroadAgenda.
This post was originally published on BroadAgenda.
A report on the South London scheme that put job advisers into NHS hospitals is stacked with statistical biases. That being the case, it means that the positive findings from it are largely bogus. Of course, this happens to be the very same programme Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) boss Liz Kendall has lauded for its employment “results” and “dramatic” mental health outcomes.
As it turns out then, the existing scheme Kendall has been parading as a pretext for rolling out job advisers for patients with “serious” mental health problems is not the resounding success the DWP secretary has quite made it out to be. Crucially, if anything, it pours cold water on the egregious notion that work is always good for people’s mental health.
Of course, it’s not really surprising – since the Canary and others have repeatedly warned DWP-NHS integration like this is a dangerous and flawed idea. However, this bunk evidence should be another nail in the coffin of Kendall’s alarming project to put job advisers into more healthcare settings.
On Wednesday 16 October, the BBC published a puff piece on Kendall’s plans to post job advisers in hospitals.
Initially, the BBC gave over the entire article to Kendall, in what it boasted as an “exclusive interview” with the DWP boss. Presumably due to rightful backlash against the scheme and odious piece of fawning stenography, the Canary noticed it has since updated this. Now, the article carries quotes from disability charities challenging it.
This included Scope’s executive director of strategy James Taylor, who underscored that:
We need to see evidence that work coaches being sent to visit seriously ill people works, and doesn’t cause distress.
Well, the Canary went in search of this so-called “evidence” for the DWP mental health plans. And let’s just say to start that it’s not exactly solid proof for Kendall’s claim to the BBC that:
the results of getting people into work have been dramatic, and the evidence clearly shows that it is better for their mental health.
Kendall and the DWP are basing this on a programme that South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust have had in place.
So, we dug out an evaluation of the Work Well scheme there. Researchers from mental health organisation the McPin Foundation carried out the independent analysis of the scheme. It’s from 2020, was updated in 2022, and reviewed three years of the programme from 2017 onwards. Obviously, it’s likely this is – at least in part – the ‘results’ Kendall was crooning over. However, they’re hardly anything to write home about. In particular, it found that out of 551 participants:
Far from the “dramatic” results Kendall claimed then.
By contrast, in terms of mental health outcomes, ostensibly, the programme did help. That is, until you scratch a little under the surface. This was where some sly statistical gymnastics came in to tell the story the programme clearly wanted to project.
The report measured participants’ anxiety and depression over three separate periods in time. Notably, it found from the start of employment they both decreased at each time point. The evaluation isn’t completely clear here. It says it assessed people at three months on and then further at six, nine, and twelve months. Of course, it gives only two extra time points after the baseline, yet it doesn’t clarify which of these points in time they actually were.
Furthermore, there was a ‘but’, and a significant one at that. Specifically, the evaluation applied this to only the 57 participants who were still in work at six months or more. In other words, it didn’t assess the mental health of nearly 500 participants on the scheme. These were people it said had “disengaged” or left the project altogether.
What we don’t know then, is why those people dropped out or drew back their engagement with it. And of course, it’s very plausible that some of these people did so because the scheme – and work itself – was making their mental health worse.
Basing results solely on the people who maintained employment beyond six months in itself is clear selection bias.
The report goes to little effort to find out why a) some people didn’t stay in employment, and b) the impact the programme had on their mental health. It simply noted that some had resigned, others had their contracts come to an end, a few were dismissed, and one hadn’t passed a training test.
Nor did it really assess the mental health of those that participated in the scheme, but didn’t start a job, or dropped out altogether. It’s blatant selection bias to only look at the people staying in their jobs for six months or more – not least because it’s people with less severe mental health problems who are more likely to be able to work anyway.
On top of this, the report conducted in-depth interviews with some participants. From these emerged a swathe of glowing praise for the programme.
However, confirmation bias struck here again. For starters, out of a pool of 551 participants, it did these with only eleven of those. Once again, these were evidently among those who’d stayed engaged with the programme. At the time of the interviews, five of these were volunteering, three working, and one was studying part-time.
Here too then, it ignored the fact that people who’d maintained contact with the scheme were more likely to have had positive experiences with it. It didn’t appear to interview people who’d dropped out of it, or attempt to find their reasons for doing so.
The report also solicited the views of eight Work Well staff, and six stakeholders from organisations that referred or took people on from the project. Unsurprisingly, they too largely hailed the programme.
Besides all these issues, the background to the report made the bold claim that:
Individual Placement and Support (IPS) models for people with mental health problems are well evidenced
Despite the brazen assertion, it doesn’t actually reference any of the said evidence for this. Much further down the report it states:
Individual Placement and Support (IPS) models in the UK have achieved modest outcomes for people with severe mental health problems (Howard et al, 2010), where 13% of IPS clients retained competitive employment after one-year follow-up. In another UK study, 35% of people who saw an employment specialist within a mental health team after one year follow up (Marwaha et al, 2014).
So, that would be, barely over a tenth in one instance, and little over a third in another one in employment a year after participating in the scheme. Of course, the year on review doesn’t exactly show long-term retention. Aside from that, these studies are now over a decade old. None of this exactly screams “well evidenced”.
Yet funnily enough, this is exactly the guff claim its own creators have made about it too. The Canary’s Steve Topple has pointed out the problems with this before, highlighting that:
The creators of IPS claim it’s evidence-based. However, one study found IPS only got people into work for a limited time. After six years, there was not a significant gap in employment outcomes between IPS and people who had standard psychiatric treatment.
Additionally, he underscored another more recent study that found:
Moreover, the success of IPS in the UK is questionable, too. Between January 2016 and March 2019:
- 31% of IPS participants started a job.
- 22% kept that job for at least six weeks.
- 12% kept that job for at least six months.
Hardly a resounding success.
Most significantly though, these employment statistics tell us absolutely nothing about the mental health impacts of IPS on participants. Why? Because the studies haven’t measured it. This is, of course once again, precisely the problem.
Ultimately then, the report doesn’t actually give us an accurate picture of participant’s experiences of the programme. So, Kendall’s claim that “the results have been dramatic” is quite a stretch at best. At worst, it’s wilful manipulation of reality.
This is because, while this evaluation might be flawed, as we previously pointed out, other DWP reports HAVE shown the devastating impacts of linking work as a health outcome. And the picture they’ve painted has been one of harm – of actively making people sicker – and putting their lives at risk.
The simple fact is, people accessing mental health services in hospitals categorically do not need DWP job advisers sticking their noses into their care.
The government is pushing these DWP mental health plans, knowing full well it’s evidence for doing so is self-fulfilling bullshit. It’s hard to see it as anything less than the eugenicist urges of a DWP hell-bent on coercing mental health patients into work.
However, people living with serious mental health problems do not need career advice. They need compassion and care. But that’s the two things that Kendall, Starmer and company hardly have a single fiber of between the lot of them.
Featured image via the Canary
This post was originally published on Canary.
Suicide is a major global public health issue, leading to approximately 700,000 deaths each year. While the global suicide rate decreased by 36% from 2000 to 2019, Brazil saw a dramatic 43% rise in suicide cases during the same period.
A study conducted by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), in collaboration with Harvard University, found that Brazil recorded 147,698 suicides between 2011 and 2022. In 2022, the Indigenous population had the highest rates of self-harm notifications (103.72 per 100,000) and suicides (16.58 deaths per 100,000), compared to the overall population, which reported rates of 70.06 and 7.27 per 100,000, respectively.
Territorial conflicts, the expansion of agribusiness, oil and gas exploration, infrastructure projects, both legal and illegal mining and logging activities, along with discrimination, inequality, climate change, violation of Indigenous rights, inadequate state protection, and lack of permanent policies, are significant contributors to the increasing suicide rates among Indigenous People in Brazil.
Daiane Borges Machado, one of the authors of the Fiocruz study, mentioned:
Increasing suicide rates among Indigenous communities are deeply rooted in a complex web of systemic challenges. These populations have long been dramatically exposed to violence, territorial disputes, and the expansion of industries like agribusiness, mining, and logging, all of which severely impact Indigenous lands and ways of life. These activities not only threaten physical spaces but also disrupt the social and cultural connections that are vital for well-being.
Additionally, longstanding issues such as inequality, discrimination, and inadequate state protection highlight the failure to implement effective, permanent policies that safeguard Indigenous rights and health. Addressing these interconnected issues requires a holistic approach, focusing on cultural preservation, sustainable development, and equitable policy implementation.
Brazil’s Indigenous population exceeds 1.7 million, with more than half living in the Legal Amazon, based on the 2022 Census by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).
A report from Brazil’s Indigenous Missionary Council (Cimi) revealed that suicides among Indigenous people in Brazil rose by 56% in 2023, totalling 180 cases compared to 115 the previous year. This data may be underestimated due to flaws in Brazil’s death verification and registration system.
From 2019 to 2022, Brazil recorded a total of 535 suicides among Indigenous People. The highest number of cases occurred in Amazonas (208), followed by Mato Grosso do Sul (131) and Roraima (57). In 2023, Amazonas again had the highest number of suicides (66), followed by Mato Grosso do Sul (37) and Roraima (19). More than a third of all cases, totalling 59, involved individuals aged 19 and younger.
Jacyra Azevedo Paiva de Araujo, one of the authors of the Fiocruz study, stated:
It is essential to ensure that government agencies are actively engaged, adequately funded, and properly equipped to maintain a strong presence and function effectively in the region. This would help reduce violence, protect Indigenous lands, and lower the risk of suicide. Since suicide risk is closely linked to mental health disorders, providing access to mental health care must be a priority. While Brazil’s public health system offers mental health treatment to the entire population, these services need to be tailored specifically to the needs of Indigenous communities in these areas.
Jesem Orellana, an epidemiologist at Fiocruz, highlighted that suicide rates among Indigenous populations are associated not only with depression but also with socioeconomic factors such as inequality, economic crises, discrimination, and the decline of Indigenous traditions and practices, including hunting, fishing, and agriculture. Orellana explained that:
Suicide is known to be a complex and multicausal phenomenon. However, in indigenous contexts, sociocultural factors associated with the symbolic and cosmological universe or even with the clash between ancestral traditions and antagonistic worldviews, such as Western ones, tend to play an important role in the tragic statistics of indigenous suicide, especially among younger people.
The invasion of Indigenous lands and territorial disputes continue to be major issues that contribute to the ongoing pressures these communities face. Numerous cases of intimidation, threats, sexual assaults, and violent attacks against Indigenous communities have been reported in Brazil.
The states of Roraima, Mato Grosso do Sul and Amazonas have recorded the highest rates of assassinations.
The Cimi report indicates that invasions of Indigenous lands rose by 252% from 2019 to 2022, compared to earlier years. This period also saw an increase in cases of homicide, sexual violence, and death threats against Indigenous People.
The key factors behind the violence against Indigenous communities include the expansion of agribusiness, cattle farming, oil and gas extraction, both legal and illegal mining, fishing, hunting, and logging, as well as infrastructure projects such as road, railway, and dam construction, along with the private appropriation of their territories.
Indigenous People frequently feel pressured to leave their land due to concerns for their safety.
Of the 1,381 Indigenous lands and territorial claims in Brazil, 62% are still facing administrative obstacles to their regularisation, with 850 pending resolutions, and 563 having received no action from the state regarding demarcation.
The Brazilian government’s support for expanding oil and gas projects in the Amazon, along with agribusiness, cattle farming, mining, and infrastructure projects like the Ferrogrão railway – linking the port of Miritituba in Pará to Sinop in Mato Grosso – and the recently approved BR-319 highway, is expected to have devastating impacts on the environment and Indigenous communities.
The reconstruction of Amazon’s BR-319 highway, which connects Manaus, the capital of Amazonas, to Porto Velho, will affect 64 Indigenous territories. This project is key for the expansion of agribusiness, oil and gas exploration, illegal mining, logging, and organised crime, all of which will directly threaten Indigenous communities in the region.
In Brazil, Indigenous communities are confronted with a multitude of challenges, frequently left to face life-threatening conditions without sufficient state protection. This lack of support undermines their ability to defend their rights and has driven some to such desperation that they resort to extreme actions, including tragically taking their own lives.
Climate change and global warming leads to environmental degradation, posing yet another threat to Indigenous communities. Their livelihoods, dependant on agriculture, fishing, and hunting, have been affected by rising temperatures, droughts, and extreme weather events.
The rise in fires and droughts is pushing Indigenous People to leave their lands and seek work in urban centres. However, they often struggle to find employment, leading to economic difficulties and, at times, an inability to sustain themselves.
The lack of job opportunities and a sense of purpose can lead to substance abuse, with drugs and alcohol becoming an escape, often resulting in severe depression and, tragically, sometimes suicide.
Illegal mining is a critical issue affecting Indigenous communities in Brazil. A Fiocruz study discovered alarming mercury concentrations in hair samples and oral swabs from 293 Yanomami individuals in nine villages located in the upper Mucajaí River area of Roraima.
The mercury levels were three times higher than the recommended safety limits, primarily due to fish contamination, which is a staple in the Yanomami diet. Additionally, cognitive impairments were found in 55.2% of the children across these villages.
Mercury is a neurotoxin, and high levels of exposure can lead to damage to the nervous system, gastrointestinal tract, and kidneys. Symptoms of high exposure include cognitive disturbances, memory impairment, mood swings, muscle weakness, and skin conditions such as rashes and dermatitis.
A study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives found that maternal consumption of mercury-contaminated fish during pregnancy over three generations contributed to children’s poor mental health, with emotional and behavioural issues linked directly to an increased risk of attempted suicide.
The degradation and contamination of Indigenous lands and water sources drive the Indigenous communities to move to the cities in search of work, exposing them to a range of challenges that can have devastating outcomes.
Preserving Indigenous knowledge and practices is vital for safeguarding the physical and mental well-being of Brazil’s Indigenous populations. The contamination of their land and water forces these communities to relocate to urban areas in search of survival, disrupting their traditional lifestyles.
As they adapt, many turn to ultra-processed foods, alcohol, and drugs – substances foreign to their bodies – which can severely affect their health. This shift often results in increased rates of depression, self-harm, and suicide, highlighting the urgent need to protect their heritage and support their communities.
It’s crucial to establish and enforce permanent policies that safeguard Indigenous People and their sacred lands, while ensuring their participation in the decision-making process. The demarcation of Indigenous territories must be a priority, followed by empowering these communities to defend their rights and protect their land.
Machado explained that:
A Brazilian program has demonstrated significant effects in reducing suicide rates among impoverished populations and could potentially be applied as a preventive measure within Indigenous communities as well. By providing financial support, educational resources, and access to healthcare, such programs can help reduce socioeconomic inequalities and promote mental well-being. Strengthening these measures and ensuring access within Indigenous communities, while respecting their cultural and territorial autonomy, could be a crucial step toward mitigating the factors contributing to rising suicide rates.
Indigenous communities must be protected by the loss of their territories to deforestation and environmental degradation caused by agribusiness expansion, including cattle farming, legal and illegal mining, logging, oil and gas exploration, and harmful infrastructure projects.
These activities not only violate Indigenous rights, but also have devastating effects on their physical and mental health. Protecting ecosystems is crucial for Indigenous communities, as their very survival is inextricably tied to the health of the natural world.
The pursuit of profit and the persistence of an extractive colonial mindset must never outweigh the survival of Indigenous communities and the lands they defend. The alarming rise in self-harm and suicide among these communities is a stark indicator of our collective failure to protect them.
We must act urgently to reverse this destructive path before it’s too late.
Featured image via Survival International
This post was originally published on Canary.
Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Labour Party boss Liz Kendall has told the BBC about the government’s plans to coerce people with “serious” mental health problems into work. This involves sticking job advisers into NHS hospitals.
So now, in the hellhole that is Labour’s “changed” UK, unemployed claimants will get dangerous weight loss jabs to suppress hunger. Meanwhile, severely mentally ill patients in hospital will have job advisers haranguing them at their bedsides with top tips on how to write a CV.
The Canary previously highlighted the government’s latest back-to-work bluster:
On 3 October, both the Guardian and the Times announced the Labour government’s new scheme to post job advisors into NHS hospitals. Of course, this is part of its broader plans for pushing long-term sick people back to work.
So once again, the government is blurring the lines between the DWP and the NHS. Obviously, its latest ploy will mean people medical support for mental health conditions will face the prospect of employment advisors telling them to get a job to fix their problems.
Kendall has now spilled the beans on this further. She told the BBC that:
This is for people with serious mental health problems
Moreover, she added how:
the results of getting people into work have been dramatic, and the evidence clearly shows that it is better for their mental health.
Most tellingly though was that fact Kendall linked the DWP mental health scheme in her interview with benefits conditionality. As the BBC wrote:
She indicated some people will lose their benefits, saying the “benefit system can have a real impact on whether you incentivise or disincentivise work”
In other words, if you have serious mental health problems, Kendall thinks work will fix them. And if it doesn’t? Tough luck, the state won’t give you a financial safety net.
In Kendall’s ode to Iain Duncan-Smith, it’s all to push down the so-called benefits bill, of course. In reality, it’s not disabled people with mental health problems bleeding the economy dry. It’s the parasitic blood-letting bosses sucking the well-being, self-worth, and every drop of profit it can from the working class.
Here’s an idea, the government could tackle poverty pushing people into serious mental health crises in the first place:
Maybe if we funded treatment properly, and didn’t threaten “seriously mentally ill” people in crisis with the “incentive” of losing benefits (food, housing, clothing), I dunno, might work better?
BBC News – Mental health patients to get job coach visitshttps://t.co/eVQKaTnOfX
— Ryan Campbell (@treesareniceish) October 16, 2024
Cough *two-child limit on benefits* cough *winter fuel payment* cough.
One person on X wondered where this ‘evidence’ Kendall was crowing about regarding her DWP mental health plans actually was:
I would love to see the actual hard evidence that sending job coaches onto mental health wards works because I very much doubt we’ll be seeing it in NICE guidelines anytime soon. https://t.co/36pWLps5r9
— Alex (@_AlexBPsych) October 16, 2024
The Canary revealed before that it supposedly came from a hospital already doing this. And it just so happens to be headed by an especially notorious psychologist and NHS director – Simon Wessely.
What’s Wessely all about? Trivialising physical and mental illnesses, naturally. You can read more about him here.
As for firm hard proof however, we’d also like to see the stats and studies she’s basing her DWP mental health plans off of. We’re betting it’s full of bunk, and as many massaged statistics as private sector health corporations that have massaged the Labour Party’s ego – and wallet.
Let’s also not forget that this is just another ploy to pawn off chronically ill and disabled people to the corporate capitalists. As the Canary previously pointed out, the NHS Maudsley scheme Kendall so avidly praised operated like some market-place of mental health patients for big business.
Those who’ve already transformed mental health patients into its profit-making dogsbody included:
big polluter Gatwick Airport. The other is the profiteering Royal Mail Group, that makes big money for its bosses, while shitting on its employees.
So, Labour is lining up unemployed people like lab rats for weight loss drugs, and people with mental health problems for the job market. All the while, it’s poking holes in the so-called social safety net for chronically ill and disabled people. Needless to say, making benefits more punitive and conditional is only going to compound people’s mental health problems further:
Those with severe mental health difficulties are already petrified of the DWP & having support withdrawn. This is going to cause new & untold suffering to those whose lives are already shattered.
This Labour government is truly repulsive. Irredeemably terrible people https://t.co/oA0mdpx3Kt
— LiLBaz (@lil_bazza) October 16, 2024
Kendall’s callous comments come right after her department released a cache of 30 reports the previous Tory administration buried.
Crucially, the Canary’s Steve Topple highlighted how one of those exposed that the DWP’s own processes were making claimant’s physical and mental health worse. And that report dropped only the week after the inquest into Laura Winham’s death. She died of starvation and her remains went undiscovered for nearly three years. As Topple pointed out:
It seems the stress of the DWP’s processes compounded Laura’s situation and may well have contributed to her lack of money, therefore her death.
Not that the Labour government will take any notice of all this.
Kendall’s DWP strong-man stunt will actually kill people.
That’s the firm evidence she doesn’t want you to see regarding her DWP mental health plans. It’s all there in the department’s own reports.
Job advisors and jabs? Just another day in red Tory benefit claimant-bashing Britain. We’re only just past 100 days in – but it’s the punching down on disabled people the Canary and others predicted all along.
Feature image via Youtube – Maudsley NHS/Ben Claimant/ the Canary
This post was originally published on Canary.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) sat on a report for nearly two years that evidenced how its own processes quite literally make claimants’ health worse. It comes just as a coroner has flagged the department’s actions during the inquest of a claimant who lay dead for nearly three years, alone in her flat.
As the Canary’s James Wright wrote, the new Labour Party government has released a cache of 30 DWP internal reports. The government claims the previous Tory administration sat on these instead of publishing them.
One report that already stands out is called:
Barriers to Accessing Health Support for PIP, NS [new style] ESA, and UC Claimants
The thrust of this report is about how the DWP can ‘support’ claimants to access treatment in the NHS. It involved interviews with 76 claimants during late 2022/early 2023. As an idea, this is problematic for several reasons:
However, it was the idea of DWP processes themselves which really stood out – not least how the claimants it interviewed viewed them.
As the DWP report itself says, it
highlighted those aspects of the claims journey that might adversely impact claimants’ health…
Support should consider the elements of the claims journey which are inadvertently impacting claimants’ health in a negative way too. For example, difficulties participants described around the complexity of the application form.
Linked to this, claimants stressed that they would not want any support offer to increase the complexity of the application process or add additional stages to the journey, which was already felt to be cumbersome.
The problem with this statement is that there’s nothing ‘inadvertent’ about the DWP making claimants even physically sicker or increasing their mental distress.
Less than a year ago in November 2023, a coroner issued a Prevention of Future Deaths report to the DWP over one claimant’s death. As the Guardian reported:
“Current DWP procedures may not be practical for those with mental health illness and can exacerbate symptoms,” she wrote. “I heard evidence that … the number of and length of DWP forms required to be completed can be overwhelming for someone with a mental health illness.”
She also expressed concern over long telephone queues to speak to a DWP adviser, and added that “having to travel long distances for appointments can be detrimental for those with a mental health illness”.
The DWP dismissed the coroner’s concerns. This came after numerous other coroners’ reports expressing the same sentiments. John Pring at Disability News Service documented seven other Prevention of Future Deaths reports in recent years – yet only took action on two.
Yet the buried DWP report released by Labour proves that the department knows it makes people sick. It states:
The application process itself was highlighted as lengthy and complex. This posed significant challenges, particularly for participants experiencing fatigue, poor mental health, memory difficulties, and learning disabilities. They described completing the form as physically and mentally exhausting, which for some led to heightened anxiety and, in some cases, had triggered periods of ill health.
Only last week, a coroner was conducting the inquest into the death of Laura Winham. She was deaf and lived with schizophrenia. Laura may have died of starvation, and her remains went undiscovered for nearly three years. The harrowing inquest so far has heard of multiple failings by social services, Laura’s council, and police.
However, one telling line in the Guardian noted that the DWP:
sent Winham letters in February 2016 asking her to make a claim for the new personal independence payment, which replaced the disability living allowance (DLA).
They explained that she may be required to attend a medical. Winham responded to Woking council expressing alarm. She wrote: “I have only lived on my savings and DLA benefit,” the court heard. These concerns were not passed on to the DWP…
What the court hasn’t seemed to concern itself with is why the DWP failed to follow up on the fact that Laura, who must have been classed as a vulnerable claimant on its records, had not responded to its letters.
The departments complete failure to enact anything remotely looking like safeguarding is a systemic problem – as the Canary and John Pring at Disability News Service have repeatedly documented. It seems the stress of the DWP’s processes compounded Laura’s situation and may well have contributed to her lack of money, therefore her death.
Yet here we are, with another internal report that shows the DWP is making people’s mental and physical health worse. And here we are, seeing that not only did the DWP not act on it – but it actively buried it.
As the DWP report itself summed up, some research participants:
wanted DWP to focus on ensuring claimants would feel better supported through the claims process itself. They suggested that if DWP truly wants to improve wellbeing, it should focus on improving its own processes first.
Of course, none of this is by accident.
The Canary has repeatedly reminded readers that it is the DWP’s job to make people NOT want to claim. By making life for chronically ill and disabled people as hard as possible, the government ultimately saves money.
In 2016, the UN issued a scathing report on UK government violations of disabled people’s human rights. It noted that the DWP “processed rather than listened to or understood” disabled people during benefit assessments. The UN said these gave disabled people significant “anxiety” and “financial, material, and psychological hardship”.
Nothing has changed in eight years; the DWP knows this, and it is unlikely anything is changing any time soon.
Featured image via the Canary
By Steve Topple
This post was originally published on Canary.
When Candace Bond-Theriault had her first child three years ago, federal abortion rights under Roe v. Wade were still the law of the land. When she had her second child this July, Roe was gone, its mandate undone by a 2022 Supreme Court ruling. By this summer, states across the country had enacted their own abortion restrictions or bans. So Bond-Theriault canceled her babymoon trip…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
A teenage girl suffering ‘intense emotional meltdowns’ had to wait two years – almost six times the target – for NHS mental health treatment, it has emerged.
England’s Health Ombudsman is urging government and NHS leaders to prioritise timely treatment of people experiencing poor mental health and support the NHS workforce to deliver this.
The girl from Gateshead was 14 when her GP referred her to NHS mental health services after she began experiencing meltdowns which sometimes involved self-harm. She was also crying a lot, often unhappy, and struggled to concentrate at school – so much that she stopped going.
National guidelines state that no one should wait longer than 18 weeks for mental health treatment. In this case, the schoolgirl waited two years for treatment after being referred to Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust’s Children and Young People’s (CYP) services.
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) investigated the case and found that the Trust failed to provide suitable care in an adequate timeframe. This caused a delay in her mental health beginning to improve.
The Ombudsman published reports in 2018 and 2024 highlighting issues in mental health services including when transferring people with poor mental health out of inpatient and emergency care, and failures in diagnosis that led to poor treatment.
Rebecca Hilsenrath, Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, said:
Timely treatment is critical for the safety and wellbeing of people experiencing mental illness. The overwhelming majority of professionals in mental health services demonstrate their hard work, commitment and care daily, but they are also working under immense pressure.
Delays in diagnosis and treatment can have a significant impact on patients, as this story shows. In this case, the girl had to wait far too long to be treated and this deeply affected her health, her life, and her family.
We have published two reports highlighting failings in mental health services over the past six years and making recommendations. However, we are still waiting for change. It is clear from our evidence that there are still problems that must be addressed if patients are to receive the care they deserve and need. Urgent action is needed to make sure that mental health professionals can deliver the right care at the right time.
It is important that the new Government looks afresh at the provision of mental health services to avoid this and other failures from occurring in future and to keep people safe.
The girl, now 18, was referred to the NHS mental health CYP service in December 2020. She was diagnosed with autism in January 2022. She then had to wait until December of that year to receive medication for anxiety and sleep problems and was only allocated a care coordinator 27 months after the referral.
No interim support was offered by the Trust during the two years between her being referred and receiving medication.
The girl’s mother said:
I can’t put into words how devastating the impact of the delay was on our family. At a crucial time in her life, my daughter was abandoned by the professionals who are supposed to care for her. She couldn’t do all the normal things that teenagers do, she became increasingly isolated and withdrawn, and her intense emotional meltdowns could last for hours.
It was incredibly stressful for us as parents to see her going through this and feel like no one was helping us. I was ringing the crisis team every week, sometimes more than that. No one would tell us where she was on the waiting list or how long it could take to get the help she so badly needed. We just went round in circles. The stress led to me having panic attacks and being prescribed anti-depressants.
I am in awe of what my daughter has been able to achieve despite what she has been through. But it is heartbreaking because she has such potential – she is highly intelligent, articulate, warm, funny – and so much of that has been wasted because she got lost in the system.
The mother complained to the PHSO who found that earlier intervention could have meant her daughter was able to stay in school, maintain friendships, and help her to feel less abandoned.
There were also failings in the way the Trust handled the mother’s complaint which increased the family’s distress as they couldn’t gain answers or updates while they waited for treatment to begin.
The Ombudsman recommended that the Trust apologise to the family and create an action plan for its NHS mental health services to improve services so that future patients don’t have a similar experience. The Trust has complied.
Healthwatch, a body that gathers and champions the views of users of health and social care services to identify improvements, has reported that they are being told about ‘extremely long waits for ADHD and autism services’ in several areas across the country.
Louise Ansari, Chief Executive at Healthwatch England said of the girl’s experience with NHS mental health services:
This story shared by the Ombudsman makes for difficult reading and is unfortunately reflective of experiences we’ve heard from autistic people across England.
With waiting lists for autism assessments growing, and almost 9 in 10 people waiting over the recommended 13 weeks, we’re incredibly concerned that more people will be feeling the devastating impact of long waits.
Work must be done to ensure people are diagnosed quicker, including through increasing the numbers of specialist staff in the NHS and improving data on autism assessments so long waits can be understood and addressed. And while people wait, they mustn’t be forgotten. More must be done to get people the mental health and other support they need and minimise the impacts on their daily lives while they wait for assessments and further support.
Featured image via the Canary
By The Canary
“I’ve seen a lot of people lashing out at people horizontally, and my gut sense is that sometimes it happens because the folks who are lashing out are definitely super traumatized, in crisis, feel and are really powerless in a lot of ways,” says disability justice organizer Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. In this episode of “Movement Memos,” host Kelly Hayes talks with Lakshmi Piepzna…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
For World Mental Health Day, Professor Linda Gask spoke to the Canary from her home in Orkney about her new book, Out of Her Mind: How we are failing women’s mental health and what must change.
In this timely book she illustrates the desperate need for change in the treatment of women in the mental health system using her professional and personal experience. Women can’t all be out of their minds – as Out Of Her Mind shows.
Gask is the author of two previous books, Finding True North and The Other Side of Silence and as a retired consultant psychiatrist has both used mental health services and worked in this field as a practising psychiatrist, academic, and author.
She was recently featured in the moving BBC Scotland Disclosure documentary about suicide in women in their 40’s and 50’s.
Canary: Problems with mental health, in particular, suicide rates, has meant the spotlight has often been on men. Why have you focused on women?
Linda Gask: A few years ago, I was asked to participate in a debate for Women’s Week in Manchester, to oppose the motion ‘Men are the losers now’. I understand why many people in our society might agree with that statement, indeed the suicide rate for men is three times that of women, but it started me thinking about all the many ways that women are still losing out in our society.
How are women losing out?
Women’s emotional pain is often downplayed and the illnesses they more commonly suffer from, such as eating disorders, get less investment in terms of treatment and research.
Other pain is not taken seriously. When women self-harm because of their distress and despair they are told they are wasting the time of health services and when they suffer unexplained or persistent physical pain their suffering is again underestimated, and they are told it is ‘in their head’.
Neither the real-life problems they face, nor the reality of the mental illnesses they may experience, are given due attention in terms of adequate care or research funding.
Canary: What can psychiatry and the mental health system do to improve care for women?
Linda Gask: There are several things we need to do:
Canary: As you say in your second point, symptoms and a diagnosis (like BPD) can mask social hardships and trauma, making women feel they are the problem – that something is ‘wrong’ with them.
Linda Gask: Women are disadvantaged in many ways in our society, which contributes to them suffering twice as many common mental health problems. For eating disorders this is three-times more than men. They are also more likely than men to self-harm, especially younger women.
Women are subject to sexism and misogyny throughout their lives, with more exposure to childhood domestic and sexual violence and harassment. To survive women are more likely to be reliant on benefits, live in insecure housing, and be single parents, unpaid carers, and in low paid and precarious work.
The greater the poverty, the more likely they will experience mental health problems and when other intersectional factors such as ethnic minority status, LGBTQ+, and disability are factored in, the level of disadvantage multiplies.
Canary: In the BBC Scotland Disclosures documentary, you discussed how women are often dismissed as being ‘hormonal’ but you’re saying they do play an important role, and as such, there needs to be much more education for psychiatrists.
Linda Gask: Our moods are affected by our hormones, and for some of us times such as adolescence and the perimenopause can be very difficult. If a woman has a history of postnatal mental illness, she is more likely to have mental health problems in the perimenopause.
Melanie Reid from the Times said Out of Her Mind was essential reading for mothers of daughters. That reminds us that young women might be having these problems in adolescence and on top could be exposed to unfettered social media. But few seem to be taking this seriously.
Youngsters have so little escape from surveillance by critical peers on social media. They have poorer mental ill-health than they did a decade ago, particularly young women in their late teens. Meanwhile we have politicians and some psychologists playing down the seriousness of this problem and saying they need to toughen up.
Women’s distress has never been taken seriously and this must change.
Out of Her Mind: How we are failing women’s mental health and what must change by Professor Linda Gask is released on World Mental Health Day – 10 October – in the UK, US, and Canada. You can purchase it here.
Featured image and additional images supplied
By Ruth Hunt
This post was originally published on Canary.
At one point toward the end of the 2023-2024 school year, Michelle Roman, a teacher at a public high school in Brooklyn, New York, began to cry in front of her students. “The kids were not doing what I was asking, I was preoccupied with things going on at home, and I burst into tears,” Roman told Truthout. “The students went completely silent, and while I tried to make a joke of it…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
About an hour after gunfire erupted at Apalachee High School, ambulances started arriving at nearby Northeast Georgia Medical Center Barrow with two students and two adults suffering from panic attacks and extreme anxiety, not bullet wounds. A fifth patient with similar symptoms later arrived at another local facility, according to a health system spokesperson. The day after the Sept.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Dr Hayley Boxall is a Research Fellow with the ANU and has undertaken research on domestic and family violence and sexual violence for over 10 years. She has published extensively on these topics, with a primary focus on pathways/trajectories into and out of DFV offending. After attending Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner Micaela Cronin’s National Press Club a few days ago, she was moved to respond.
Last week, Micaela Cronin, Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner, addressed the National Press Club of Australia on the ‘Inaugural Yearly Report to Parliament on the Progress of the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032.’
The speech covered a lot of ground, ranging from the importance of using non-passive language when we’re talking about DFSV, through to the processes for developing programs for people using violence within Australia. If you’d like to watch the talk in its entirety, find it here.
As someone who has researched in this space for more than a decade, I have thoughts!
A few key things to note: I agree with everything that was discussed in the room and I also share Commissioner Cronin’s sense of hope that we could be the generation who makes a difference in stemming the tide of domestic and family and sexual violence in Australia. But in particular, I wanted to elaborate on three points that were raised by the Commissioner because they made my heart so happy to hear them raised in such a public forum by someone who has the ear of government.
Commissioner Cronin said that we need to understand pathways OUT of offending. It was only a brief mention, but it is such an important area of research which has so often been overlooked. As a society, we don’t have high hopes for the ability of people to stop using violence.
One research participant I spoke to a few years ago – let’s call her Jane – said the violence had stopped for three-years within her previously very violent relationship. Jane was very surprised that her partner was capable of being non-violent and said her experiences were an ‘anomaly’, that she was ‘weird’. It was actually why she chose to speak to me as part of research! She saw herself as a fascinating case study worthy of closer examination.
While Jane was very interesting and I learnt a lot from her, her experiences were not an anomaly. Many men who use violence are capable of change. We know this from interviews with victim-survivors and longitudinal studies conducted internationally.
But our understanding of WHY is very under-developed. That means our responses are focused on mitigating risk, rather than promoting desistance.
This is a bit of a passion area, so bear with me. Again and again, I am so disappointed and confused by the lack of focus on young people who are at risk of using DFSV but either have not used them yet, or may be showing the first signs of these behaviours. I have spoken to so many carers of young people who are using violence in the home, and the consistent feedback I get is the lack of services for these families and young people, and how soul-crushing it is to want to support your loved one to get help when there is nothing available for them.
Young people who use violence are typically in distress. Research has shown that they are likely to have been exposed to family violence in the home, death of family members and other traumatic events, as well as social exclusion, poor self-esteem and mental health.
But intervening early is not only a social good, it could also have longer term implications for the volume of DFSV within the community. A recent study I conducted while I was theAustralian Institute of Criminology found that only 7% of all juvenile offenders had been proceeded against for DFV offending in NSW. However, this cohort accounted for 33% of all DFV-related offences perpetrated during young adulthood by the juvenile offending population. We need to get that piece of the puzzle right if we want to disrupt pathways into offending and support pathways out of offending.
Commissioner Cronin was spot on when she said that we ‘don’t really talk about sexual violence’. Historically we have not really included sexual violence, abuse and coercion within our analysis of DFV, or collapsed it into other categories of behaviour. I myself have been guilty of collapsing sexual violence experiences into the general category of physical violence. Shame!
However, really important evidence has demonstrated that the risk factors associated with sexual violence are actually more similar to emotional and verbal abuse than physical violence. For example, Anthony Morgan and I analysed a survey of 10,000 women finding that those who were the primary breadwinner in their relationship were more likely to be subjected to sexual violence, but not physical violence.
Broader research has suggested that abusers weaponise sex as a way of degrading women, making them feel ashamed and small and to put them back in their box. I have spoken to several women who said that their partner were sexually coercive as a way of making them feel like ‘more of a man’ because they weren’t earning as much as them, or their career was floundering.
I also remember speaking to one woman – let’s call her Sam – who said her partner purposefully pressured her to have unprotected sex and gave her an STI which he knew he had but failed to tell her about. When she called him in tears after being diagnosed with the STI, her partner said “Well now you’ll have to stay with me – no one else will have you”.
Sexual violence is also a really important risk factor for homicide. Why important? Because unlike other risk factors which may only emerge in the weeks and months leading up to the murder, sexual abuse and coercion is likely to be present throughout the entire relationship. So it could be viewed as an early risk factor for homicide in the life of the relationship.
People feel icky talking about sexual coercion and abuse. It feels intrusive and not our business. But it is a vital part of the puzzle, and it is also an important risk factor for homicide. We need to do better on this dimension of IPV.
Dr Hayley Boxall says the risk factors associated with sexual violence are actually more similar to emotional and verbal abuse than physical violence. Picture: Supplied
Nothing Commissioner Cronin said during her speech was revolutionary, but that’s not really her job is it? Her job is to listen, to listen and engage with the community and experts, to consolidate that information, share it within government, advocate and hold the government to account. However, as someone who has been waiting years for people to talk about pathways out of offending, for the need to focus on young people and sexual violence, her speech was very powerful.
But what next? Ideally what will flow from this speech will be tangible actions, such as funding for programs that support young people who are at risk of or using violence in the home. For research that really tries to unpack the factors that are linked to men choosing to stop using violence, and support for organisations to have difficult conversations about sexual coercion within intimate relationships.
I am hopeful that this generation can make a difference, so let’s crack on with some action.
The post What Micaela Cronin got right about ending gendered violence appeared first on BroadAgenda.
This post was originally published on BroadAgenda.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) could potentially owe hundreds of thousands of personal independence payment (PIP) claimants thousands in back-payments.
This is thanks to a high court ruling from 2019. Specifically, it found that the DWP should have awarded many disabled claimants the higher rate of PIP. Notably, the court ruling will particularly affect people claiming PIP with mental health conditions – who it has wrongly denied greater disability benefits.
The department is currently in the process of contacting claimants about this potential entitlement. However, already, the DWP has denied this enhanced rate to the majority of claimants – and without claimants taking action, this could be the case for many more.
The DWP divides PIP into two separate parts. These are the ‘daily living’ component, and the ‘mobility’ component. Crucially, the 2019 court ruling means that the DWP should have awarded claimants the higher rate for the daily living component of PIP.
As the Big Issue has previously detailed:
The ruling was made following a challenge by a PIP claimant, a 47-year-old man known as MM. It concerned the definition of “social support” when engaging with other people face to face.
The Supreme Court ordered the DWP to clearly define what counts as support and not dismiss the help that many people with mental health problems need in social situations.
Specifically, it means that the department is reviewing hundreds of thousands of cases dating back to 2016. As the Mirror reported, claimants who the DWP may owe this back-dated enhanced rate include:
- People who have regular meetings with a mental health professional, without which they would not be able to manage face-to-face encounters
- People who need the input of particular friends or relatives with experience of supporting them in social situations – rather than just any well-meaning friend or relative – to help them manage face-to-face encounters
The DWP didn’t start looking at claimants’ PIP until late 2021 – two years after the ruling. Since then, it has been reviewing these. But, by 31 August 2023, it had done so for 79,000 claimants – less than 20% of cases it had identified.
Crucially, despite the fact the ruling means that the department has to review over 400,000 claimants’ benefits, this doesn’t mean it will award all these claimants back-dated pay. Notably, the DWP has so far denied this higher rate to the majority of claimants it has reviewed.
Its most recent progress report in October 2023 showed that:
Most of the claimants the DWP had denied the uprating to hadn’t challenged its decision. Just 390 people had applied for a mandatory reconsideration of the DWP’s review for their cases. Significantly however, as a result, the DWP had to award 100 claimants – over 25% of these – the higher rate of PIP. It meant the department paid out £420,000 to these claimants.
In other words, the DWP had wrongly denied the higher rate back-payments to a significant proportion of claimants. Naturally, it’s likely to be the case for many other claimants it has dismissed in this review so far too.
On top of this, the DWP isn’t automatically reviewing all claimants that could be entitled to the enhanced payment.
In particular, this applies to people affected by the “timing” element of the court’s judgement. The judge stated that:
In short, I do not consider that descriptor 9c is limited to cases where a claimant needs social support actually during the face to face engagement
This refers to the ruling’s decision that claimants needn’t have social support at the time of a DWP’s assessment to qualify for the higher rate benefits. Former Tory DWP minister Tom Pursglove said in a statement to parliament in October that 284,000 people could be entitled to higher rate PIP because of this.
Instead of reviewing these cases, he said that the DWP will send letters out to these claimants. This letter would encourage them to contact the DWP about this.
Of course, it likely means many more could lose out. This is because the DWP has a notoriously long wait times for its telephone contact lines. Obviously, this makes it hugely inaccessible to chronically ill and disabled claimants. Notably, as the Canary previously reported, its in-house lines had failed to field a third of calls in 2023-2024.
However, given the high rates of awards after mandatory reconsiderations, claimants the DWP has rejected at review should this follow up. The DWP could owe many it has so far denied enhanced PIP to thousands in back-dated payments.
Feature image via Youtube – Tracey Media/the Canary
This post was originally published on Canary.
Can’t work due to bad mental health? You’re a selfish scrounger with no self respect according to the NHS director of mental health Claire Murdoch in the Times On Friday, the Times published a piece lauding the government’s new DWP plan to tackle the supposed ‘worklessness crisis’ by putting work coaches in mental health services.
Not only will this put more pressure on an already struggling NHS (which the government regularly blames disabled people for), but it will also mean anyone seeking support for mental health issues will be forced to focus on getting a job.
The Times explained that mental health services will be stocked with teams of employment advisors offering everything from help with CVs to mock interviews. Because when you want to die due to the mounting fear of having your benefits cut, you actually don’t need a therapist – you need someone to show you how to format a CV.
The most perverse thing about the article is the jovial attitude and use of words like ‘offer” which make it seem like this will in any way be a choice. There’s of course no mention of what will happen if disabled people turn down this “offer”.
With the government refusing to remove conditionality from the welfare equation you can only assume that benefits will be dependent on whether patients ‘engage’ with these new work coaches in the same way the current system does.
The article also focused on how services help those who have been unemployed for a long time and seek mental health services have been supported into work. But it doesn’t address the reality that many can’t work and that schemes like this will force them into jobs that could cause their conditions to deteriorate and their mental health to worsen.
So you’d think that mental health practitioners would be against this right? Lol, here’s what Claire Murdoch, director of mental health at NHS England, had to say:
As the NHS, we want to help people find work or keep work. The NHS can, should and does think of itself as a contributor to economic growth.
She continued, by making disabled people feel like a burden:
The NHS is really clear that work is good for you. It’s a way of making a contribution, putting food on your table, being connected to something bigger than just yourself or your own life.
Oh but it got much worse. She finished with:
Work is part of self-respect and self-worth, using your talents, and having structure and meaning to a day.
Nothing instills confidence in those struggling with their mental health like being told by the people running the services that are supposed to help you that they have no self-respect.
As consultant clinical psychologist and activist Dr Jay Watts put it best on Twitter:
Er no. The NHS can, should and does think of itself as a contributor to health.
Dr Watts continued
Mental health staff have a moral duty to reject any ‘health as work’ agenda involving the DWP. DWP sanctions take away respect and the means to survive; integration destroys trust. Fear of DWP policies is so intense, it drives people to starvation. Informed consent is impossible.
The scheme won’t mean disabled people are supported into work. It will instead mean that less disabled people who desperately need these services will be more reluctant to access these services for fear of having their benefits cut.
It will mean that those deemed ‘difficult” whilst having very real mental health crises will be marked as ‘not engaging’ and not only will they lose support, but they’ll also – you guessed it – have their benefits cut.
There’s a lot of talk about Britain’s mental health crisis, but it’s too often through the lens of getting people back into work. If the government is actually committed to helping people with mental health issues it needs to stop seeing us as cogs in a machine and instead as people who are worthy of support.
It’s dangerous to put DWP responsibilities on the NHS, as those two things should never be put together. Unfortunately, it has been going on for years – and the new Labour government appears hell-bent on ramping NHS-DWP integration up.
But more than anything, it shows how blatantly callous the government is. They care more about work than they ever will about disabled people.
So far I see no “change” from the last lot.
Featured image via the Canary
This post was originally published on Canary.
By Roni Roseberg
I recently retired and finally said goodbye to the classroom.
As a teacher of ESOL (English to Speakers of Other Languages), I had the great privilege of working with around 75 different national and cultural groups.
Many of my students were refugees from overseas.
And whilst I was supporting my students with their English – including everything from beginners English to proficiency levels – I am sure that I learned more than I taught.
It’s a career that started out quite unexpectedly, but which has since shaped my life.
Wind back many years, Auntie Anita, my first husband’s aunt, was nagging me to visit her at work.
She was a secretary at a public Northern California adult educational centre about ten miles from where we lived. And she though it’d be just my thing.
I’d taught four years of high school by that time and given it up to raise a toddler. Now, I was thinking of part time work.
“But I don’t have the right credential to teach adults,” I protested.
It didn’t work. She persisted.
“I can get you a temporary credential” she continued. “And you’ll have a year to get the permanent one. You’re right for the job.”
And so, she did. My first class was at night in downtown Oakland, California.
A cosmopolitan city if ever there was one! I had students from at least a dozen countries that first night.
I was given very broad curriculum guidelines, and I did a lot of creative “ad lobbing” as it was my first class. It went great!
The evening flew by, and by the end of the class everyone was smiling. I knew this was the right setting for me.
So, I continued part time, had a second baby, and changed to a school closer to home.
I was still teaching at night with a class full of adults who worked during the day, and though tired, came to night school, optimistic and cheery about getting ahead in American society.
I knew then that I’d not go back to teaching high school. I proceeded to get my credential in adult education.
My district in particular welcomed hundreds of refugees from Afghanistan.
We also welcomed people from dozens of other countries, from Argentina to Mongolia.
I spent the next years in urban areas teaching English as a Second Language, cultural diversity awareness in the business sector, and basic reading skills to recently released prisoners.
I did so for a total of 40 years.
That, coupled with early years working in Alaska, gave me a complete window on the world.
Thanks to social media, I’m still in touch with dozens of former students, and have accepted invitations to visit them in half a dozen countries where they live.
I consider myself very lucky indeed!
Auntie Anita, one of the most persistent people I’ve met, harangued and dispensed lots of unwanted advice.
But, she was on target. I was right for the job.
Watching my students develop their English language skills was an absolute joy.
As was, learning from them.
I may have been the teacher, but I really do feel that this incredible experience taught me much more.
Here’s what I learnt!
Just because a person comes from a certain culture, it does not make them a spokesperson for the whole culture.
Each person is an individual with their own experiences, views and lived experiences.
Plus, what I also discovered is that cultural communities are very diverse.
Not all people from the same place are alike!
Whether from a minority of majority community, each culture is rich in language, history, culture and beliefs.
Get to know the individual on their terms – you’ll learn a lot more.
It goes without saying that we should welcome migrants, refugees and asylum seekers to their new home.
And that includes: ensuring that we’re not fostering any space for racism, discrimination and exclusion.
Negative stereotypes, scapegoating of communities and cultural biases are everywhere (no thanks to the media!).
So, as in point #1, firstly: check yourself for conscious and unconscious biases.
Secondly: we need to also understand, recognise and mitigate for inter-community biases and conflicts.
No community is immune from negative biases. There are internal biases and racism with many cultures – not just our own.
So, whatever the history (e.g. religious, ethnic, “caste-based”, gender and socio-economic difference/conflict), be ready to recognise biases and work against them.
People leave their home countries for a variety of reasons – and causes.
Displaced by the effects of climate change, poverty, conflict, persecution (relating to one’s faith, gender or sexuality) – there are countless reasons.
But one common denominator is this: life. To live in freedom, safety and security.
I can safely say that after my experiences, many people who change countries usually do so out of necessity – not because they want to do so.
Moving country is challenging in any context – some more complex and challenging than we could ever imagine.
Learning the language of anywhere you’re living is critical. It opens so many doors – economic and social, cultural.
From accessing medical services, going to work and making new (and varied) friends – language is crucial. It really is key to integration.
Of course, people come with vastly varied experiences and levels of education.
Some may by fluent in the national language, others a little rusty. Some may be starting from scratch.
Everyone has different histories and needs. And how fast people learn a new language often depends on whether they plan to stay in the new country.
Again: each context is different.
Language is key to integration – but it’s not the only element.
As a society, our strength lies in our respect for diversity and ensuring equity across the board.
The resilience of people can be astounding – including the coping skills people bring with them.
Yet, whilst, you’re looking to the future – but the past can travel with you.
People who come to a new country may have suffered immense hardship/trauma – and therefore struggle with conditions such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression and/or anxiety.
For refugees and asylum seekers in particular, the affects of trauma from conflict/violence (personal loss/grief and displacement) and persecution/torture (physical, sexual, phycological abuse), require empathy, care and potentially professional support.
When counselling someone, empathy and compassionate listening are critical.
I however personally always try to give suggestions for concrete actions – whilst of course ensuring that my advice is informed and useful.
Signposting may be the best advice you give.
First generation immigrants face many challenges and hardships, including potential language gaps, financial struggles, cultural shocks and emotional trauma (see point #5).
These challenges are usually different to that of their second-generation children (and subsequent generations).
Children who are born in the new country or arrived at an early age generally find it easier to carve out their own sense of identity, embracing both their own native and the national culture of their parents’ adopted country.
Parents may be determined to re-create a sense of the home culture in a new place but can become frustrated when their children will not or cannot accept that.
As a result, their children may struggle to manage both the expectations of senior members of their family, alongside their own experiences and wants/beliefs as a second/third generation migrant/refugee.
Of course however, every family, individual and context is different.
Whilst the world is so wonderfully diverse, we’re all human. And we’re actually more alike than people may think.
Yes, we’ve got far more in common than any differences among us!
Of course, our experiences and our upbringing all shape us, our beliefs and our view on the world.
But, when it comes down to it, we all share the same foundations, feelings and wants of being human.
What’s more, each of us keeps on learning and changing throughout our lives.
Cross-cultural learning can bring not just a great sense of discovery, but also solidarity and teamwork to the classroom.
You may speak different languages, you may have been born in different countries – or even continents – and you may be at different stages in your life…
But I can guarantee one thing: you all welcome a friendly face!
Smiling isn’t quite universally understood in the same way. But, a lot of people do appreciate a smile and a helping hand.
And a smile can often go a long way at breaking the ice, easing a bit of tension or sometimes filing a bit of silence.
And that’s what it’s all about really: supporting one another together.
Individuals and communities have different life-experiences, traditions and needs. And that’s great!
We are richer in our diversity and we can all learn from one another. We have so much in common.
We don’t need to all be the same in each and every way. We just need to share a sense of common citizenship, unity, respect and equality.
Ultimately: we are stronger together.
So, in increasingly turbulent times, let this be our reminder: let’s come together, remember what we have in common and learn from one another.
Because love trumps hate every time.
Featured image: Freepik
This post was originally published on Voice of Salam.
Monday was the five-year anniversary of my girlfriend’s death.
She was 28. Ultimately, she died from alcoholism after pneumonia caused her liver to shut down, which then triggered sepsis.
She wasn’t ready for help. Until she was, and by which point it was too late. Unfortunately, that’s how alcoholism works. Unless a person chooses to get sober it’s progressive and fatal. It’s excruciating to watch someone you love so deeply die in such a painful and tragic way.
Her anniversary, along with watching the far-right lunatics’ race riots on the news and social media the last few days, has really made me reflect on the state of the country we live in, how little has changed since she died in 2019, and how – when she had absolutely nothing – she was still more caring than the well-paid politicians running the country.
Before Leah died, she was staying in supported accommodation for people who were homeless and struggling with addiction. Even during that time, she was the most selfless person I’d ever met. She routinely gave her last £20 to people who had nothing so they wouldn’t have to sleep on the streets.
Just like in 2019, violent men are still going unchallenged, people are going without homes or support, individuals suffering from addiction are demonised and looked down on. Women are not believed when they report abuse, or when they are in pain or unwell. Families with more than two children are losing out if they become unemployed and need to claim Universal Credit. Injustice is all around us.
The exact same problems that Leah faced – homelessness, alcoholism, trauma, and lack of support are the exact same problems that are still plaguing society, five-years later. Nothing has changed. In fact, it has actually got worse.
According to the Centre for Homelessness Impact, the number of people who are rough sleeping ‘is rising at a rate not seen in decades’. What happened to the Tory government’s pledge to end rough sleeping by the end of the next parliament? What is Labour going to do about it now?
In the time that has passed since Leah’s death, I have seen over and over again how easily society overlooks, and even forgets, people like Leah.
When she died, the central point of the conversations of people that surrounded me was her alcoholism.
No one stopped to consider how or why she got to the point she did. No one questioned our fucked up justice system that allows dangerous men to walk free while she battled to keep her head above water. Or the lack of support available to her when she so desperately wanted help but wasn’t at the point where she could physically stop drinking without medical help.
People overlooked her sense of humour, her ability to walk into any room and make someone smile, and the enormous amount of love she had for everyone around her. They overlooked the Leah that I knew and loved.
When someone dies, or even commits a crime, our society chooses to focus on a person’s problems – the addiction, the mental illness, their immigration status, or their housing situation. People forget that they are real people and their suffering is a direct result of callous government policies – which are often doing exactly what they were designed to do.
Over the last week, we have seen the direct results of years of cruel government policies mixed with the corporate media’s vilification of people who are struggling.
Far-right racists terrorising cities across the country – and the sad thing is that many of them genuinely believe that immigrants coming over on boats are the problem rather than the processes in place which make it extremely difficult for anyone claiming asylum to reach the UK safely.
Our politicians say ‘stop the boats’ and the far right come running.
We live in a capitalist system which perpetuates trauma. The racist violence we are seeing on the streets is a direct result of that. Our government underfunds vital services, the media demonises people who are struggling – and people need someone to blame.
Obviously, they are blaming the wrong people. We should be blaming the elite – the politicians, the billionaires, and the corporations who are all in each other’s back pockets. All of these people profit from other people’s suffering. The system is perpetuating trauma because it only has the wealthy in mind.
No matter how fucked up Leah’s circumstances were and how little hope she had – she was never angry or bitter. She never stopped trying to help other people – or make them feel seen.
This week we have also seen hundreds of people coming together. We have seen pensioners protecting mosques and community clean ups in Middlesbrough and Hartlepool. Mosque volunteer’s even embraced far-right protesters in an attempt to find peace when their own Mosque was being targeted.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I want to be more like Leah and those Mosque volunteers. Imagine if the politicians leading the country were a little more like them?
We can lose our faith in systems, politicians, and services. But we cannot lose our faith in humanity.
Feature image via On Demand News – Youtube/ MetroUK – Tiktok
By HG
This post was originally published on Canary.
Canary columnist and ardent anti-NHS-privatisation campaigner Dr Julia Grace Patterson has once again exposed the rot festering at the heart of the UK’s healthcare system. Creeping NHS privatisation is in full swing – not least in mental health services, as damning new figures show.
Specifically, Patterson’s advocacy group EveryDoctor dug up the money the NHS has thrown at the private sector for mental health beds since 2019. The findings were staggering.
As the Big Issue reported:
The NHS in England spent more than £1.4bn of public money on private mental health beds between 2019 and 2024.
The eye-watering figure was uncovered through Freedom of Information requests.
Moreover, as the outlet noted, this was largely driven by a rapid drop in the number of mental health beds across the NHS. In particular, it highlighted that between 1988 and 2019, mental health beds in the NHS dropped nearly three-quarters, from 67,100 to 18,400. Of course, successive, mostly Tory government cuts to the NHS and public spending en masse have fomented this critical collapse in provision.
According to the Independent, the Tories’ ruthless austerity politics oversaw a 25% drop from just 2010 to 2021 alone. This equated to the loss of approximately 6,000 mental health beds in the public health service.
As a result, government spending on private mental health beds has sky-rocketed. In just the past five years, this has risen by 68%. However, as the Big Issue highlighted, in some areas, the figures were in fact much worse. It revealed that:
Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust told EveryDoctor it was spending ten times as much on private mental health beds in 2024 as it had in 2019. Lancashire & South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust’s spending jumped from £3.8m in 2019/20 to a staggering £40m in 2023/24. In Dorset, the mental health trust was spending just £800,000 on beds in 2019/20 but by 2023/24 this rose to £6.6m.
The biggest private provider cashing in from the Tory’s manufacturing of a mental health bed crisis, was Cygnet Health Care. Its parent company Universal Health Services (UHS) is based in the US. Unsurprisingly, the health care giant has a chequered history of scandal. Not least, as the Canary’s Megan Sherman detailed in November 2023, the “fraudulent detentions of psychiatric patients for profit.”
And like parent company, like subsidiary. Cygnet Health Care itself has a damning rapsheet of allegations to its name too. Sherman has argued these amount to:
an institutional culture of human rights abuse
Crucially, she documented the multiple investigations into Cygnet’s:
widespread use of cruel and unusual punishment, in which physical and chemical restraints, supposedly a last resort option implemented on a case-by-case basis, are normalised, standardised procedure, even when the patient poses no threat, accompanied by boasts from abusive nurses about the damage they inflicted captured in undercover footage.
This is the company now making an ostensible killing from private mental health bed across the UK. Big Issue underscored that during EveryDoctor’s FOI period, it had reported overall profits of more than £84m.
Apart from the appalling allegations of abuse at Cygnet private health facilities, the lack of NHS mental health beds has been having other devastating impacts on patient care as well. Big Issue noted that in 2023:
NHS England recorded 280,000 patient days of ‘out of area’ mental health placements with independent providers.
In other words, the lack of NHS mental health beds means the service is shipping mental health patients away from home. As a result, this sordid state of affairs is cutting vulnerable patients off from their community’s and family-friend support networks.
Given EveryDoctor’s latest findings, Patterson told the Big Issue that:
NHS staff have spoken up repeatedly about the lack of hospital beds and the false economy of outsourcing care to private companies, and have mostly been ignored. Meanwhile, enormous sums of public money are being funnelled into private companies.
Private companies have no place in the delivery of public healthcare, because profit creation is often not aligned with the interests of patients, or the staff who aim to provide excellent care within a sustainable service.
However, with Wes Streeting’s penchant for privatisation, and his plans to plug the paucity in NHS care with the private sector, it doesn’t look like this is about to change anytime soon.
Feature image via Youtube/the Canary
This post was originally published on Canary.
Understanding and raising awareness about the obstacles and disparities faced by trans and gender-diverse employees in Australia can help managers access a larger talent pool by implementing inclusive initiatives.
Manager’s knowledge should include the awareness of discriminatory challenges of a decent proportion of employees (approx. 11% LGBTQIA+) to demonstrate sensible actions concerning the International Day Against LGBTQIA+ Discrimination (IDAHOBIT) or throughout Pride Month. Unlike rainbow washing, inclusive initiatives can result in an increasingly positive work culture and equitable customer engagement.
Towards the end of this year, the Australian Human Rights Commission will publish a project mapping current and emerging threats to trans and gender-diverse human rights. I provided a submission that encourages organisations to rethink their workplaces that must uphold human rights to unlock the immense value of diverse talent.
As a non-binary academic researcher, I have had the privilege of consulting with trans and gender-diverse individuals about their experiences in Australian workplaces. The stories I have heard paint a sobering picture of systemic discrimination, exclusion, and denial of fundamental human rights throughout the employee lifecycle.
From the very start during recruitment and selection processes, trans and gender-diverse applicants face significant hurdles. Starting with job application forms often force them to misgender themselves by requiring a binary gender selection. Followed by selection panels harbouring unconscious biases that can discriminate against trans and gender-diverse candidates. Additionally, there is the dilemma for trans and gender-diverse applicants of whether to risk outing themselves by providing documentation like prior certificates listing former names and incorrect gender markers.
Securing employment does not mean the challenges end. The onboarding experience alone can be traumatic, such as introducing new trans and gender-diverse hires to colleagues using incorrect names and pronouns. A lack of transparency around inclusive policies on matters like gender affirmation leave can leave trans and gender-diverse employees feeling unsupported and vulnerable.
The workplace itself is often rife with ignorance and hostility. Co-workers and managers lacking LGBTQIA+ education perpetuate an unwelcoming environment, while gaps in anti-discrimination policies fail to protect trans and gender-diverse employees from harassment and abuse, even from customers. Abuse by customers towards trans and gender-diverse employees is often not addressed.
Robin’s research shows that “…from the very start during recruitment and selection processes, trans and gender-diverse applicants face significant hurdles.” Picture: Adobe Stock
Such chronic discrimination and minority stress take a heavy mental toll, undermining trans and gender-diverse employees’ ability to perform and develop professionally. Even when adequately performing, they are frequently overlooked for career advancement opportunities or promotions due to stigma and bias against their gender identity. Many feel forced to work “twice as hard” and conform to outdated gender norms, just to avoid being targeted.
Consequently, the impacts extend into areas like performance reviews, where trans and gender-diverse employees may be graded poorly not due to merit, but because of a manager’s prejudice. Or learning and development programs, which can be minefields without LGBTQIA+ knowledgeable trainers and safe travel policies for trans and gender-diverse staff overseas. Even participating in an “inclusive” event can become an exercise in tokenism rather than an authentic growth opportunity.
Faced with these relentless headwinds, it is no wonder many trans and gender-diverse employees opt to leave hostile work environments, knowingly sacrificing future job prospects because they can no longer get supportive employment references. Those who do pursue exit interviews often avoid them, fearing re-traumatisation from recounting their negative experiences.
The cumulative effects are staggering higher unemployment, job dissatisfaction, and economic disadvantages for Australia’s trans and gender-diverse community as they are systematically excluded from opportunities and robbed of dignity in the workplace.
In my view, protecting the rights of trans and gender-diverse employees is both a moral imperative and an economic necessity. Beyond the ethical obligation, organisational cultures that marginalise trans and gender-diverse talent severely undermine their diversity, innovation, and competitiveness. No workplace today can afford to ignore such a glaring inclusion failure.
Initiatives or organisational changes are outlined to offer organisations practical recommendations translatable to their daily business, such as utilising employee resource groups, reviewing best practice recommendations by the Diversity Council Australia, or establishing clarity about organisational values. Concluding by highlighting the organisational duty and responsibility for the employee’s psychological safety in the workplace.
The way forward requires a comprehensive reckoning by Australian employers. At every stage – recruitment, onboarding, development, retention – proactive measures must be implemented to combat discrimination, educate staff on allyship, enforce inclusive policies and practices, and ultimately create safe, empowering environments where trans and gender-diverse employees can thrive authentically. Only then can we realise workplaces that fully uphold human rights and unlock the immense value of diverse, liberated talent.
Picture at top: The Progress pride flag/Shutterstock
The post Navigating the employee lifecycle: Trans and gender-diverse edition appeared first on BroadAgenda.
This post was originally published on BroadAgenda.
Adam Aurand spent nearly a decade of his life stuck in a loop: emergency rooms, psychiatric hospitals, jails, prison, and the streets in and around Seattle.
During that time, he picked up diagnoses of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and schizoaffective disorder. He also used opioids and methamphetamine.
Aurand’s life is an example of what happens to many people who experience psychosis in the U.S.: a perpetual shuffle from one place to the next for visits lasting hours or days or weeks, none of them leading to longer-lasting support.
This week on Reveal, reporters who made the recent podcast Lost Patients, by KUOW and The Seattle Times, try to answer a question: Why do America’s systems for treating serious mental illness break down in this way?
The answer took them from the present-day streets of Seattle to decades into America’s past.
You can find Lost Patients wherever you get your podcasts:
NPR: https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510377/lost-patients
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lost-patients/id1733735613
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1avleoc5U4DA7U37GFPzIH
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This post was originally published on Reveal.
The latest analysis from finance expert, RIFT, has shown that, as a nation, we’re gambling more than ever as we continue to battle against the high cost of living. But while the National Lottery is our preferred shot at instant fortune, it’s the Conservative Party government who are the real winners, collecting almost a billion pounds a year in lottery duty – and over £3bn in total from gambling.
RIFT analysed the latest Gov figures on HMRC tax receipts* which show that during the 2023-24 financial year, HMRC collected £3.389bn in tax receipts from betting and gaming.
While this may only equate to 0.41% of total receipts received by HMRC, it’s a figure that has been increasing steadily since households have been hit by the cost of living crisis.
During the pandemic (2020-21), annual betting and gaming tax receipts fell by -6% in a year to £2.837 bn, as lockdown restrictions reduced the opportunities available to have a flutter.
However, since interest rates started to climb in December 2021, adding to the high cost of living endured by many households, this figure has been on the up as more of us pursue hopes of instant riches.
In 2021-22, total tax receipts from betting and gaming increased by 8.4% year on year, then by a further 7.4% in 2022-23. The latest annual increase of 2.6% in 2023-24 pushed annual betting and gaming tax receipts to the current total of £3.389 bn – the highest total on record.
This trend is also apparent when analysing gross gambling yields across the gambling sector*, with the latest figures showing an 11.8% increase in 2021-22, followed by a 6.8% jump in 2022-23 to a total of £15.122bn.
When it comes to the activity driving this increase in gambling, the National Lottery is the nation’s favourite form of gambling and gaming by some margin.
In fact, of the £15.122 bn gross gambling yield seen in the 2022-23 financial year, the National Lottery accounted for 23%, with just remote gambling via casinos proving more profitable for the gambling industry.
However, with a one in 45 million chance of hitting the jackpot, the average consumer has more chance of being struck by lightning than winning the lottery. So who’s the real winner?
Figures from the Gambling Commission show that in the 2022-23 financial year, there were £8.184bn in total National Lottery sales.
£4.694bn of this contributed to the prize pot, while £1.709bn went towards good causes.
Retailers’ commissions stood at £255m and the licensee, Camelot, retained £544m. However, the biggest winner was the government, who bagged £982m in a single financial year as a result of the 12% lottery duty paid.
Bradley Post, MD of RIFT, commented:
Inflation may be easing but households across the nation are yet to feel the benefit and the cost of living crisis has been straining the finances of the nation to breaking point since interest rates started to soar in December 2021.
As a result, more and more of us have been turning to gambling and gaming in the hopes that we might win big and secure some financial security, with the lottery being the game of choice for most.
Of course, the lottery offers some of the toughest odds of the lot and, as the old adage goes, the house always wins. In this case, it’s fair to say that the house is the UK government, with lottery duty bagging them close to a billion pounds a year.
It’s a story we hear all too often unfortunately – the government profiting off the hard earned cash of the UK public in a time of desperation.
Featured image via the National Lottery – YouTube and the Canary
By The Canary
This post was originally published on Canary.