Act now to protect mental health funding

national | rights, freedoms and repression | news report

Monday November 01, 2010 11:08

by Amnesty1 - Amnesty International Ireland

info at amnesty dot ie

Mental health services, already cut, are on the chopping block once more. More than 80 organisations, politicians, economists and campaigners are signed up to www.healthrisk.ie to protect our mental health services. Join them and take action.

Frustrated with mental health services?

Mental health affects everyone, yet our mental health system is at breaking point. There is a real threat to people’s mental health, even their lives, if services are cut. The chance to recover, to play a full role in their community is at risk for thousands of people.

People must act now to defend mental health spending in Budget 2011.

You can let the Government and your local TDs know that mental health services must be protected. A minute of your time can make a world of difference.

We know there will be cuts in December’s budget, but mental health services have already been hit hardest:

· over half of all HSE staff cuts last year were from mental health, but it makes up only 9 per cent of the health workforce;
· two hundred children are in adult inpatient units;
· assessment waiting lists for children and adolescents have grown by 14 per cent in less than a year.

Financial stress, debt and unemployment are putting a massive burden on people’s mental health. Demand for services is growing as people look for support. Suicide and self-harm levels rose sharply last year.

Any further cuts in Budget 2011 will signal the death knell of mental health reform. It will condemn another generation of Irish people to a mental health system left over from the Victorian age of asylums.

We all need to speak out and to stand up.

Politicians from all parties sign up

Act now

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Comments (8 of 8)

good luck with your campaign

by ordinary worker

Tue Nov 02, 2010 15:07

It is refreshing to see what seems to be a sensibly run campaign using normal language on indymedia. I suppose that is because the 'normal' revolutionaries have more exciting campaigns to be involved in and have their latest "huge" march to organise. Thankfully they allow this to prevent themselves from getting involved in anything like this and also prevents them from making a mess of it.. Finally I wish all involved good luck with your campaign and well done on this useful initiative and by using everyday language etc you have a real chance of raising awareness and of having some success.

Agree with above

by Depressed

Wed Nov 03, 2010 16:17

It is about time. The mentally ill themselves complain about just how discrimatory the left itself is towards the ever growing population of people taking tablets

yep

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party

Wed Nov 03, 2010 17:04

the left can be as cyclopean as the right. We need more binocular focus.

sociopath

by bbb-billy

Wed Nov 03, 2010 18:52

And Nurse Ratchet needs more red paint on her ass

It improves our collective mental health no end when we see some civil disobedience and NVDA stuff like this happening

defend our rights

by depressed

Thu Nov 04, 2010 14:29

im on a training course where people like me on tablets for depression (the mentally ill) get lumped in with the down syndrome for a talent contest-has to be all shades of wrong

here I go again..

Thu Nov 04, 2010 14:57

Depressed,
My attitude for a long time has been that if you are not depressed you must have your head well jammed up your arse and be refusing to register what is happening under your trough-buried snout.
I consider depression a symptom of mental HEALTH. Life is a cycle, it oscillates between poles, and when it stops going up and down with the experiences of getting by, your read-out flatlines into happy idiocy. It need not be the masochist's vale of tears, but it aint no fucking sleighride, unless you are so insulated by money that you can deny your common humanity and adopt the 'I'm alright Jack' formula of cynical arrogance.

Noli illegitimmi carburundum.Dont let the bastards grind you down.

..but I don't want their 'help'!!!

by Darren

Sat Nov 06, 2010 06:43

...as far as I am concerned as survivor of the mental health type trip, I don't want any patronising 'assistance' (or even very very frightening fascist controllism) from the state! I've moved on, got a handle on the bad head trip of the pyscriatric trip! I don't believe in pyscriatric disease!

Just be positive (in a way that the state drongos can never ever teach), do positive work, work towards your freedom of consciousness, towards a positive opening of full consciousness rather than the negative type pyscriatric implosion, liive in balance and respect with Mother Earth. Many of these so called pyscriatric diseases are not real diseases, but just states of unfreedom related to our society, and its scism from liberated consciousess, its scism from the reality of the living Mother Earth etc etc.

Blessed be!

a good start..

Sat Nov 06, 2010 13:44

..for anyone concerned about mental health in all its dimensions, try Ivor Browne's autobiography 'Music and Madness'.

The best minister for health we never had.

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Act now to protect mental health funding

Comments (8 of 8)