Health Care > Why is mental health care so poor in this country?Related Photo
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Please don't tell me to love our country or get out. It's just a simple question.
As simple as your question is, there are many aspects to its answer.
The patient's embarrassment, ignorance, uninformed, self-diagnosis, belief that it's a matter of willpower, pressure from well-meaning-but-uninformed friends and family,
not knowing where to go, inability to access help due to money-time-schedule-transportation-respo...
AND when a person has severe mental illness he/she is unable to think and reason and function on their own - including the ability to access mental health care. He/she must have friends or family that will make the appointment and transport the mentally ill person, and often sit with them through the appointment, then see to it that they take their medication to become stable.
3 of us in my extended family have had serious mental health problems. Accessing the existing mental health care is expensive, the pay therapists get per hr. way exceeds what the working public make per hr. more like what we make in a day. And those needing it the most are the least capable of earning the money required to pay for it. Plus, those who are able to work are unable to schedule psych appointments during M-F "working hours".
Sadly, insurance companies have limited hospitalizations for psych patients. They rule the way treatment(??) is administered, choosing to rely on meds more than therapy.
Too few group-home living situations are available to our portion of the public incapable of living confidently on their own and addressing their own health and daily affairs.
We really do need more "homes" for those who are not capable of living on their own, whether temporary or longterm. We need something for families and adults where there is respite care in a safe and affordable supervised - non-hospital environment.
I have seen such a "transitional home" in operation, while imperfect, it has been a lifesaving and successful learning tool in many adult's lives.
How does the sick person pay for healthcare and medications? This question is universal to all of American Health Care.
