Housing Mental Health Care in Prison 1

This week I found a tweet on the internet on a new Dutch youth law the Dutch are voting on February 11th. One of the arguments provided in the new Dutch youth law is ‘demedicalization’ of mental health care. If you’re coming from the stand point that mental health need not to be treated with anti-depressants & psychotropics, this could sound good. I don’t think they are hailing the idea of providing the real help necessary for psychological problems, which is psycho-therapy. But knowing the pharmaceutical industry is the biggest industry next to the militairy industry, this demedicalization will certainly not entail less pharma.
What the new Dutch youth law boils down to is that mental health care for the youth & adolescents will not be provided for though basic medical insurance. The video below illustrates that the youth are in desperate need for help. Those who are committed to tbs treatment are not getting the help needed. A psychiatrist admittedly confirms he cannot really help anybody adequately, because he’s simply the only one in the facility which houses 200 kids. Most of the people working inside the youth facility are not well enough educated nor equipped with the right tools. Therefore there is no way the workers can assess anybody professionally, let alone provide help to those who are committed in the tbs youth facility. For the kids & adolescent inside it boils down to waiting till your prison time is up and it’s time to walk out of there.

The Sunday column of February 8th of Nicolas Kristof in the New York Times writes somewhat about this problem as well : Inside a Mental Hospital called Jail. People who need mental health care are not getting the help they need, because insurances don’t cover it.

“We’ve systematically shut down all the mental health facilities, so the mentally ill have nowhere else to go. We’ve become the de facto mental health hospital.”

I decided to submit my comment to this article. Read my comment below:

The question remains unanswered in the media:
Why are the government and the mainstream media ignoring the pink elephant in the room? Basically taking psychology out of the equation i.e. psychology, knowledge about psychology, teaching everybody about psychology & self-awareness & consciousness.