A recent post by The Trench Warrior and the subsequent comments have made me think about this. In fact one of my co-workers had a discussion about how the mentally ill are treated in the health care setting.
Many times, people who suffer from a pervasive mental illness get treated less then compassionately by nurses and possibly even some doctors. There is no tolerance for their strange behaviors. And God forbid if they haven’t been compliant with their psych meds in addition to having a medical issue!
The interesting thing is that if a person comes in for uncontrolled diabetes, or coronary artery disease in the setting of morbid obesity, smokers who have COPD, etc. there tends not to be the angry, bitter reaction. Those are conditions that are negatively impacted by a patient’s social setting, much like someone with mental illness.
If you are diabetic and have no insurance or bad insurance it can be exceedingly difficult to get your medications and testing supplies. Guess what? The same is true if you’re mentally ill.
If you’re poor and live in a bad neighborhood, it’s going to be difficult for you to afford fresh fruits and vegetables (or have a store close enough that actually sells that type of item) and your neighborhood may not be safe enough for you to walk for exercise. And, health clubs, forget about it! And guess what, you’re probably more likely to be obese and have the problems associated with it. The mentally ill don’t have a community that supports them (typically), and that negatively affects their outcomes.
I’m not sure that I can come up with an equivalency for a smoker with COPD and the mentally ill. Fellow social workers, feel free to help me out in the comments.
Anyway…my point? My co-worker and I were laughing ruefully, thinking, “What would those unsympathetic health care professionals say if we walked into the obese by-pass patient and said ‘Hey you fat bastard, you need to put down the chips and get your ass off the couch!’?” Unfortunately a few would probably praise our intervention. But, there would be others that would be horrified at our lack of compassion for and understanding of the patient’s medical issues. It’s just too bad that they can’t see their lack of compassion towards the mentally ill is really the same thing.
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