Our Failure to Help Those Most in Need
This Globe & Mail opinion piece reminds us that very few Canadians can access good mental health care, and those that can are the ones that have the financial means to afford it.
Those most in need are the most consistently failed by the system.
Can we do better? The costs of untreated trauma and mental health are staggering. This article mentions the financial costs, but - in my experience - the social costs are even greater (broken families, violence, addiction and homelessness) and the suffering is beyond measure.
Many patients enter the funded system and - at the best, receive some symptom management - while, at the worst are re-traumatized and broken. Many are treated by clinicians who have undertaken a few weekend courses, cannot diagnose or recognize the signs of trauma, and do not have access to skilled supervisors and their own personal psychotherapy.
This is nobody's fault. The extent of need is far beyond the human and hospital resources available in the funded system, and there is no room in family physician's requirement for a vast and diverse medical knowledge base to develop the requisite skills to deal with complex mental health issues (and, by the way, they are all complex!)
Too often, self-interest runs rampant in the publicly-funded system, and transformation is difficult within a rigid political hierarchy, which resists evolution and innovation. Academics with limited clinical experience tend to be given precedence over those with extensive practical experience and training (Having spent 22 years in emergency medicine and 14 in the world of physician delivered psychotherapy and trauma therapy, I can say that the latter culture is far more rigid and politicized than the former).
What do you think?
How would you create change in the system, so that those suffering from mental illness and the effects of individual and collective trauma can find sanctuary, appropriate psychotherapy & trauma therapy and a sense of dignity?