Mental Health Care System

In our current society, many believe that barriers to mental health treatments are “limited availability and affordability of mental health care services, insufficient mental health care policies, lack of education about mental illness, and stigma” (Unite for Site, 2000-2013). If those barriers exist for

Mental illness can happen at any time in the lifetime of a person. The illness affects the mind and alters a person’s feelings, thinking and behavior hence a difficulty in functioning. A majority of mentally ill people live on the streets, commit crimes and are imprisoned instead of getting proper treatment at a mental health facility. Pete Earley’s Crazy: A Father’s Search through America’s Mental Health Madness points out the essence of educating the society about dealing with mentally ill people. Earley uses his son’s condition to emphasize on the need for medical treatment rather than the imprisonment of mentally ill people. He notes that the society cannot ignore the rights of the mentally ill in accessing treatment (Earley, 2006). Notably, the justice system ought to be reformed to help the mentally ill to live a normal life like any other person.

The provision of mental health services in the U.S. is a social justice issue that affects vulnerable populations in a variety of ways, including: limited access to quality mental health programs, especially in rural areas; the stigma associated with seeking mental health help; and discrimination against those with mental health issues. The far-reaching implications on our current system and policies of mental health care mean that it is a pervasive issue in the United States. According to the Scientific American, “Mental health care is one of the biggest

In today’s society, mental hospitals are still a potential solution for the mentally ill, but they are seeing a steady decline in incoming patients. Although there is still a need for the mentally ill to be admitted to mental institutions such as hospitals, the reality is that the heightened cost of treatment deters many potential patients. Instead, the mentally

Access to mental health care is not as good as than other forms of medical services. Some Americans have reduced access to mental health care amenities because they are living in a countryside setting. Others cannot get to treatment for the reason of shortage of transportation or vast work and household tasks. In some areas, when a

Over 50% of americans studied said that they have been avoiding mental health treatment because of costs[thinkprosses.org 2016]. Studies show that the affordable care act was the leading force in health care but now since that has been repealed there is little two no affordable coverage for the mentally disabled and that is a large problem in america. Mental health care is to exclusive to only the people that can afford the expenses. being able to live a full life should not be an expense because everyone deserves to live a full life and people who were covered through the affordable care act are now forced to pay out of pocket until they get new and possibly more expenses lastly people who were insured lots of these people working and if

In today’s society there is a greater awareness of mental illnesses. With this greater awareness one might assume that there would be a substantial increase in government involvement or funding in the area of mental illness treatment. Unfortunately this isn’t the case in the U.S. today. There are hundreds of thousands of people with mental illness that go untreated. These potential patients go untreated for many reasons. These reasons are discussed in the Time article “Mental Health Reform: What Would it Really Take.

What is left is that we have many citizens who are mentally ill and are not receiving treatment. However the patients who are able to receive treatment are only able to have some treatment covered. Health insurers are responsible for covering the immensely large cost of substantial treatment, a mixture of medication and therapy; since therapy is highly priced, less reliable, and time consuming; patients typically do not receive treatment for therapy. Health insurers would much rather cover medication because it is cheaper, it heals patients faster, and it is more reliable than therapy. However, medication is not made to heal, but to only coax symptoms of a mental illness (Sandberg).

Society’s views about the mentally ill have helped shape the criminalization of their every move. On any day there are around 283,000 people with severe mental illness currently incarcerated in federal and state prisons. In contrast, there are around only 70,000 mentally ill in psychiatric hospitals

The lack of treatment for mental illnesses — due partly from the stigma with which it is associated with — comes with a number of public issues: economically,

The United States criminal justice system has been continuously increasing incarceration among individuals who suffer from a sever mental illness. As of 2007 individuals with severe mental illness were over twice as likely to be found in prisons than in society (National Commission of Correctional Health Care, 2002, as cited in Litschge &Vaughn, 2009). The offenses that lead to their commitment in a criminal facility, in the majority of cases, derive from symptoms of their mental illness instead of deviant behavior. Our criminal justice system is failing those who would benefit more from the care of a psychiatric rehabilitation facility or psychiatric hospital by placing them in correctional facilities or prisons.

Psychological disorders are common in the United States and worldwide. The National institute of mental Health discovered that, “An estimated 26.2 percent of Americans ages 18 and older — about one in four adults — suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year.” Having an uncle who was diagnosed with Schizophrenia in 2003 has changed the way I see people with mental illnesses. After reading and watching the documentary about prisoners who have to undergo medication just to live a “normal” life has given me inspiration to come up with a few ways that will help our justice system deal with these sorts of individuals. While researchers are trying to come up with different medical measures to cure these diseases we as individuals can implement some procedures to help and support mental patients.

Lack of access to mental health care and treatment is one of the top ten reasons that many mental health conditions go untreated. Many private and group health insurance plans only include minimal mental health care coverage or do not incorporate mental health care coverage at all. Over half of adult citizens of the United States of America, who possess a mental illness, do not obtain mental health care treatment. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, one out of every five adults in America have endured their own mental health difficulty, and one out of every twenty-five American adults suffer from a severe mental illness, such as major depression, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder. (Top 5 Barriers to Mental Healthcare Access, Social Solutions.com, 2017)

Although about 450 million people in the world currently are suffering from a mental illness, many untreated, the topic still remains taboo in modern society (Mental Health). For years, people with mental illnesses have been shut away or institutionalized, and despite cultural progression in many areas, mental illnesses are still shamed and rarely brought to light outside of the psychiatric community. The many different forms in which mental illness can occur are incredibly prevalent in the world today, and there is a substantial debate about the way that they should be handled. Some people are of the opinion that mental illness is merely a variance in perception and that it either can be fixed through therapy or should not be treated at

Access to mental health services is distributed unevenly across countries, with low and middle-income countries (LMICs) lacking proportionate access to human resources and treatments. Developed countries only carry a small portion of the global mental health burden, and yet they are most equipped to treat patients. In need of a more sustainable method of providing mental health services within the confines of cost and time, LMICs have begun to explore the option of task-sharing, in which mental health care is conjointly or selectively provided by a trained community member with preexisting or nonexistent experience in health-related functions. If treatments and interventions conducted by non-specialists are comparably effective to those