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| Image: ght.org.uk |
The Guardian ran an article at the start of February regarding the push for doctor's in the UK to spot mental health problems in patients. The doctors, writes Randeep Ramesh and Sarah Boseley, will be in for a cash windfall if they can detect the "disease" early and nip it in the bud.
A pot of £150m has been set aside for docs to reduce the risk of depression in children and adults. The scheme is being backed by UK health ministers who claim that a new approach is needed that tackles the underlying causes of the illness which represents a third of GP cases.
Mental health costs the NHS £10bn a year. Do ministers think by offering docs to diagnose an illness that is undiagnosable will reduce this bill?
The article goes on to say, "There is a particular focus on children as half of mental health problems start before the age of 14."
The psychopharma monopoly are at it again folks and we are going the way of America.
This is dine and dash by proxy. It's the UK government doing the job of the drug rep.
The article continues:
Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, said there would be an additional investment of £400m to "improve access to modern, evidence-based psychological therapies over the next four years".
Yeh right!
And we can believe Nick Clegg, right?
The only reason psychiatric drugs are handed out is because there are no alternatives. Sure we have counsellors in the UK but the waiting list can be up to three months. What better way to treat the patient with a course of mind altering drugs until they can get an appointment with a counsellor. By then it will be too late, another statistic will be hooked on medication, another statistic will fall foul to the poison that is prescribed for an "illness" that makes the pharmacuetical industry billions of pounds.
Yeh, I'm a cynic. One only has to look at the United States to see the statistics of children doped up to the eyeballs on psychiatric medication. Jeez, if a kid farts in the classroom in the States he/she is either carted off to a mental health holding unit for 72 hours or told they cannot return to school unless they agree to take a course of medication.
The Guardian article continues with:
"Professor David Richards of Exeter University, national adviser to IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies), the programme set up to increase the number of therapists and ensure more patients get access to talking therapies, said any suggestion that the £400m was new money was "a lie".
"He said it had been explained at a meeting of the IAPT group two weeks ago that the money would have to come from the existing NHS budget. "We were very disturbed when we found this out," said Richards.
"I personally feel very aggrieved that mental health is being used by this government to shore up its very poor opinion poll ratings and I don't want to be part of it."
I doubt very much if this cash bonus for docs is aimed at getting patients on talk therapy. With 15 minute slots for each patient becoming more like 5 minutes these days, docs will merely reach for the prescription pad before the patient has time to sit down.
Job losses, peer pressure and debt are sending thousands of patients to doctor's surgeries on a daily basis - these are people who are suffering pressure and NOT a mental illness.
As for targeting children under 14 because "...mental health problems start before the age of 14." - complete and utter bullshit.
If Clegg and Cameron think a cash incentive for docs to diagnose a mental illness will see thousands flock to counsellors to 'talk' then they are very much mistaken.
Sir Winston Churchill ran a country through a World War. Millions of children were left without fathers...but they 'got on with it' without the need for psychiatric drugs.
Churchill once said, "If you're going through hell, keep going", a rousing rally to the brave who put their lives on the line for us all and the country, as a whole, who were left behind to pick up the pieces.
It appears that modern day politicians would prefer the term, "If you're going through hell, take a pill"
Tossers.
Rant over.
Fid
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