Plea over treatment of mental problems
People with mental health problems should have the same right to be consulted about their treatment as ordinary citizens, it was claimed today.
The National Disability Authority (NDA) has launched guidelines for setting up strategic partnerships between people with mental illnesses and healthcare organisations.
They are intended to give people a way of expressing their own views and to deal with the concerns of health professionals, who are often cynical about the concept.
NDA chairwoman Claire O’Connor said the partnership approach had been supported by international bodies such as the World Health Organisation.
“The NDA considers that disabled people’s participation in strategic decision-making is a vital component of promoting their inclusion in Irish society,” she said.
The Strategic Partnership Guide, which was drawn up by the University of Teeside in England and the Institute for Mental Health Recovery in Ireland, recommends 12 steps for a successful partnership.
This includes a recognition that people with mental health problems want to share their views about the work and direction of the partnership organisation.
Professional staff who dismiss partnership, saying ‘These aren’t proper users’ or ‘It’s tokenism’, must be worked with and should be told not to expect too much too soon.
The Inspector of Mental Hospitals, Dr Dermot Walsh, has said that it is increasingly important that people who receive mental health services should be involved both in the planning and delivery of them.
Eastern Vocational Enterprises (EVE), which provides jobs and services for people with mental disabilities at clubhouses in Dublin and Kildare, have been operating a partnership approach for several years.
General manager Margaret Webb said it involved the members, the staff, the management and the funders.
“Critical in our experience was building in an honesty factor about the reality of “risk-taking” and the permission to “make mistakes“,” she said.
The Pathways project in West Galway consulted people about the mental health services they were receiving.
It found that 40% of people surveyed did not understand why they were taking their particular drug and 73% would like to have had more information on their diagnosis.
One member of the project, Liz Brosnan, told the report authors that the successful partnership had given her the confidence to obtain professional work again.
“It was a liberating and empowering, indeed ultimately life changing, process for me,” she said.
