One in four people in this country will suffer from a mental health problem at some point in their lives. Rethink, a national mental health charity, conducted a survey on MPs mental health last year. They found that 11% of MPs had suffered personally from a mental health problem. Yet not one is prepared to speak publicly.
In part this is undoubtedly to with the stigma that surrounds mental health. But there is also a clause in the Mental Health Act which states that any MP who is sectioned is removed from their seat, with no provision to return. There is no such provision for any physical health problem. This is clearly a discriminatory clause and it strengthens the stigma around mental health.
Make no mistake about it, that stigma is the same stigma that leads people to suffer alone and in silence, pretending that everything’s okay and avoiding seeking treatment, leading to furthur tragedies. We need to break down this stigma, which is why I’m supporting Rethink’s camapign to abolish section 141. To me this clause sends out clear message that if you have suffered from mental health problems in the past your contribution is not welcome in public life. That simply doesn’t make sense. The people whose voices are most often lost in the system are those of the patients. Anyone who has seen the mental health system through their own eyes will have a valuable insight into possible reform, and a way to change the tragedy that has unfolded in our society.
I can also well imagine that section 141 is an extra barrier to talking about mental health publicly for MPs. People who are suffering at the moment need to know that they are not alone and that you can recover and make a positive contribution to society. I know that because I’ve been there, genuinely believing that there was no hope, no chance of any kind of a life. But I’m lucky. I recovered and got myself into a position where I could potentially help others.
When it comes down to it I believe that you can judge how decent a society is by how it treats it’s most vulnerable members. We have an opportunity to send out a clear message. Section 141 should be abolished.
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6 Comments
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Well said.
Sectioning is a healing process. I don’t see how the braying environment of the lower House is a healing environment. Sectioned MPs should still be removed from the House for their own good. Perhaps they should be able to return later if they felt up to it, but who sits for their area in the interim? No-one would stand in a by-election just to be a temporary MP, surely?
I very much agree with this article, and I also commend you Patrick for admitting your own troubles in this area of health.
Robson’s comments are, in part, fair, as it is not always approriate that a member should still have say on legislative processes whilst in the middle of a breakdown, yet the blanket approach in this instance is, I believe, unjust.
I do need to stand up and be counted as another former mental health patient, who has been blessed to now be in recovery.
This article by Patrick Murray highlights mental health care under resourcing was confirmed by the Joseph Roundtree Foundation quoted in Nick Clegg`s speech, at the Univ.of Sheffield, on 31/10/08:
The Round tree Foundation research referred to a 1990`s Britain, where those with mental health issues were being subjected to:
`Humiliation,Sense of Failure,Difficulties in Parenting,Depression,Marital Breakdown,Loss of Independence and lost hope and dreams’.
One family was suffering from this kind of mental breakdown in Britain every 11 minutes.
In a `Guardian Article’ dated 8/2/08 Nick Clegg called for a `Revolution in Mental Health Care’ at the Public Services Summit, in St Albans.
It was revealed in the UK, in 2006, there were 31 million prescriptions of anti-depressants and 630,00 prescriptions to children.
The important question that remains unanswered by this Government today is :
Do we have an underlying crisis in Mental Health care that is being made dependent on a legally prescriptive `antidepressant’ culture, that is spiralling out of control?
Robson’s comments could be made with equal validity about a physical health problem. If a condition, physical or mental, is debilitating for a long period, then the problem arises. Ariel Sharon served as Prime Minister of Israel while in a coma for three months.
The question is why are physical and mental illnesses treated differently in the law. Now, according to “Rethink”, you have to be sectioned for 6 months to lose your seat. Perhaps a fairer rule would be remove MP’s who haven’t attended parliament for six months – for whatever reason. Perhaps excluding absence during recess.
Why has a nominally “liberal” party yet made it its policy that the Mental Health Acts should be repealed lock, stock and barrel. Why was there was so much fuss about the minor illiberality of the detention without trial for a few extra days of a handful of terrorist suspects, when, fare more illiberally, thousands of people innocent of any crime can not only be detained indefinitely without charge, but can be physically assaulted whilst detained, in order to enable the forcible administration of drugs that they do not consent to take in the first place? It is an extreme double standard to oppose anti-terrorist illberal measures, whilst supporting illiberal measures against people accused (as it were) of mere “thought crimes”.