2 ms·

My experience of mental healthcare in the UK and China is not what what you imply. Your description of mental care for homeless in USA is close to what is avail

My experience of mental healthcare in the UK and China is not what what you imply. Your description of mental care for homeless in USA is close to what is available for the majority of the working class in the UK. I worked in mental health in the UK. In my area an initial mental health consult has a 6 month wait. You are unlikely to receive ongoing care in the first 2 years after the initial consult, but most will never be offered ongoing care. Lack of treatment pushes people out of the job market and into destructive behaviour. The fact that it is free at the point of care matters little when poor health is itself financially destructive. I also cared for a relative's health in China. If you want a basic level of hygiene you will pay for everything. If you want clean sheets and avoid bed sores you may need to pay extra. Bring a good blanket, the hospital may not have a heating system.

rented_mule 5y ago
It sounds like mental health care is in a bad state in many places. There is an illusion that the US system means we don't have the difficult waits you describe in the UK... that's not my experience as someone seeking care. Part of why it took me so long to get treatment (I mentioned that I've been dealing with this for decades) is that 20 years ago I could only afford to get treatment that I knew my insurance company would cover (cover == 80%). I was on two waiting lists... the insurance company's own list and one at Stanford Medical Center. I tried to get on more lists, but I couldn't find any that weren't "full". I checked regularly on the two lists, each time being told I don't have to check as they'll reach out when I'm at the top. I gave up checking after three years and they never reached out. I never got as far as a consult. It's expensive for me now because I didn't go the insurance company's route - I just went straight to a doctor and submitted insurance claims after. I almost couldn't reach out for treatment this time. I knew I was nearing a point of no return. It felt like reaching out for treatment meant facing potential rejection on my last chance and the added stress made me almost non-functional. That's part of why I describe myself as lucky. I was able to amass the savings needed for treatment before my illness incapacitated me so much that I could neither work nor seek help. While it's a bad situation that it can take years to get ongoing treatment in a system like the UK's, I still would have had treatment many years earlier. Things need to improve all over if we actually want to make progress on homelessness. We need approaches to get people off the street. But we also need to have better systems in place that reduce the number of people ending up on the street in the first place. I don't believe that remediation without prevention will do much to reverse current trends.

rented_mule 5y ago

It sounds like mental health care is in a bad state in many places. There is an illusion that the US system means we don't have the difficult waits you describe in the UK... that's not my experience as someone seeking care. Part of why it took me so long to get treatment (I mentioned that I've been dealing with this for decades) is that 20 years ago I could only afford to get treatment that I knew my insurance company would cover (cover == 80%). I was on two waiting lists... the insurance company's own list and one at Stanford Medical Center. I tried to get on more lists, but I couldn't find any that weren't "full". I checked regularly on the two lists, each time being told I don't have to check as they'll reach out when I'm at the top. I gave up checking after three years and they never reached out. I never got as far as a consult. It's expensive for me now because I didn't go the insurance company's route - I just went straight to a doctor and submitted insurance claims after. I almost couldn't reach out for treatment this time. I knew I was nearing a point of no return. It felt like reaching out for treatment meant facing potential rejection on my last chance and the added stress made me almost non-functional. That's part of why I describe myself as lucky. I was able to amass the savings needed for treatment before my illness incapacitated me so much that I could neither work nor seek help. While it's a bad situation that it can take years to get ongoing treatment in a system like the UK's, I still would have had treatment many years earlier. Things need to improve all over if we actually want to make progress on homelessness. We need approaches to get people off the street. But we also need to have better systems in place that reduce the number of people ending up on the street in the first place. I don't believe that remediation without prevention will do much to reverse current trends.