Intensive Home Treatment for Acute Mental Disorders: An Alternative to Hospitalization
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In 1978, I became the medical director of a general hospital psychiatric unit serving the twin cities of Kitchener/Waterloo in southwestern Ontario, Canada. Over the next four years, population growth accelerated, and more psychiatrists joined the department, both of which resulted in increasing pressure on beds. We reached a point where patients had to wait a dangerously long time to be admitted.
The provincial Ministry of Health policy was clear: no more funding for hospital beds only funding for community programs. I couldn’t see a way forward. An acute day hospital did not seem feasible; most of our patients were too ill to reliably attend, and public transportation is poor. There were no workable models for a crisis residence at that time.
BBC News
By Michael Buchanan and Judith Burns
BBC News
image caption Obviously we will find a way to survive, because we have to, but it s a lot lot harder, said single mum, Rebecca
Failing to extend a £20 lockdown benefit boost will harm the health of millions of people for decades, leading health organisations have told Prime Minister Boris Johnson in a letter.
Introduced last year, the £20-a-week uplift is due to end in April.
Claimants say it has been a lifeline and dread losing it.
Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey has hinted the government could be moving closer to extending the rise but says there is no decision yet.
The verdict is clear: the imposition of lockdowns and social distancing, along with delays in getting children and adolescents back into schools – has been fatal for society, creating a slow motion mental health explosion that could last for decades.
To anyone actually paying attention, warnings and concerns have been raised for months by many different people and advocacy groups, but rather than considering the spectre of permanent arrested development, governments have such dismissed concerns as a low priority in relation to ‘stopping the spread of the virus.’ Instead, virtue-signalling individuals in government, along with teachers unions, have retreated into the irrational world hypochondria and paranoia and leaving the youth hanging out to dry in the process – despite the fact that near zero risk of young people ever becoming ill from COVID-19. Similarly, most teachers are similarly in a low risk of ever becoming seriously ill from coronavirus.
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