MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES NEED INVESTMENT AND LEADERSHIP

Last Thursday, the Minister for Health again refused to accept the criticisms laid out by the recent Mental Health Inspection Report.

The Mental Health Board’s report stated clearly that the individuals who understand the service are not being given the authority to make the necessary changes to help service users. This lack of leadership leads directly to the waiting lists and mistreatment which puts lives at risk.

During the panel, the Minister also suggested potential further outsourcing of services. This comes despite the board’s clear stance (and our’s) that service users are being failed by outsourcing such sensitive work to untrained workers with no local context. The report specifically called out “untrained Meddoc staff who could not manage situations arising from mental health or medication problems”.

We call on the government to stop the privatisation of the GHA via the back door, and to instead focus on hiring locally and training up the professionals already in the system. This would lead to better patient outcomes and create better jobs for the many locals on supply lists and zero-hour contracts.

We also need to draw attention to the Minister’s inappropriate language. During the panel, the minister described mental health episodes as “having a meltdown”. She also referred to the overprescription of addictive drugs like Benzodiazepine as “giving people a quick fix”.

This kind of language gives the impression that she has no experience with people who have mental illnesses or health crises and a lack of seriousness about the danger caused by improper interventions or care.

This lack of sympathy ties directly to the ways in which many service users in supported accommodation are still stranded. As Gibraltarians we should be ashamed to have our friends and family living in such conditions. A minister who has been made aware of this should be making it her top priority, not fobbing off the problem to the Housing Department.

The only approach which will meaningfully improve mental health is a holistic one. We call on the government to reject privatisation and “quick-fix” solutions and to instead invest in the workers who can tackle the root problems.