Quote:
|
That being said, I do see the flip side. I have a cousin who like me is a recovering alcoholic with MH issues. She works as a peer support worker with an ACT team, in North Toronto. She views her role as helping people stay out of the hospital, and if that means ensuring that they are meds compliant that's what she'll do. She has one patient who keeps going off his meds because he believes that they're what's making him ill, and it's a revolving door in and out of the psych hospital. Is that good for him? no. But the fact is he can't function without medication. On meds he can function and have some semblance of a life. So what's the choice, try to keep him on meds and have a chance at a life, or give up on him, let him go off his meds, have him wind up on the streets likely to be dead in 6 months.
|
But how do we know how the person feels? Or do we judge that by "they are out of hospital, not troubling us"?
Maybe meds do make some ill on the long term (hint: Anatomy of Epidemy). Maybe instead of making sure person is "compliant", we should look into other ways of healing. The assumption people ditch their meds because they are too dumb to see how good they are for them... is kinda dangerous.
Icarus Project's publication asked question about why we measure impact of MI by the person not turning up in their job... and we don't ask if they wanted to do this job in a first place.
Why is there so many pill dispensing programs, quite a few feel good programs (art therapy can be helpful, but will not solve big scale problems), but very few "let them find place in life" programs? Maybe if we offered people real alternatives, they'd use them. Forcibly showing pills down their throats so they don't do trouble... is not a solution. And may allienate them even more.
__________________
Glory to heroes!
HATEFREE CULTURE