Treatment for all Mental Illness Should be Free
Yesterday, some clown in Melbourne decided it was a good idea to miss his psychiatric appointment and plough his car into a group of innocent pedestrians. Amazingly, nobody was killed and the man is now in custody.
This guy is not a victim — he’s a domestic terrorist — which is a name deserved by all people who attempt to kill others in a public place. If you create terror; you’re a terrorist.
But how do we prevent this from happening again, besides banning cars or enclosing footpaths entirely so that walking to work feels like a visit to the aquarium?
We confront mental illness as a society, with money. Shitloads of money.
It’s estimated that just under 20% of the population of the Western world suffers from some form of mental illness during their lives. Almost a quarter of the world is directly impacted by depression, anxiety or something more serious. Indirectly, families and friends of sufferers try to find a way to make sense of it, because there’s no rulebook when your partner comes home and crawls into a ball in the corner of the bedroom and rocks back and forth.
Trust me, I’ve been that ball, and statistically, you know someone who has been too — perhaps you.
And yet, despite conservative estimates putting the financial impact of mental illness in the billions and the number of lost lives through suicide continually rising, what are we really doing about it?
Charities do their best.
The Government says nice things.
But caring and asking ‘are you okay’ isn’t a solution to the problem. These people don’t need to be asked about their stability, they need a journey from awareness of an illness through to treatment and ongoing support.
And it should be easy to understand and free of charge. The treatment should be carried out by psychiatrists who can prescribe antidepressants and these should also be heavily subsidised.
Because you really don’t want to see someone coming off fluoxetine without a tapering off plan.
Mental illnesses are acknowledged as diseases, and yet unlike other conditions where treatment plans and diagnostic processes are easily understood, depression and anxiety treatments are still shrouded in mystery.
Go to your GP, get a referral to a psychiatrist or psychologist and then…
Even if the treatment works, if you need ongoing support past a limited government rebate period it gets really expensive, and then the easiest thing to do is to stop treatment or skip a few appointments.
It’s no good talking about domestic terrorism after the fact. The driver in Melbourne injured others and deserves to be punished, but others like him need more support and understanding, not only from the community but — far more importantly — from the government and health services.
A clearly laid out process for diagnosis.
A free treatment program.
A free ongoing support program.
Something as simple — and expensive — as this would improve the lives of almost a quarter of our population and make the rest of us safer.
