Mental Health Crisis in New York City

Mental health is regarded as an emotional, psychological and social well-being of an individual. It brings out differences in peoples actions, feelings and thoughts. Mental health affects how people relate to each other, how they handle stress and the choices they make. Being able to cope with stress efficiently helps one to work productively hence contributing to the communities resources. Therefore, the mental health forms one of the significant aspects for consideration in the health sector given the fact that it dictates the human relations (Sharon & Nancy, 2017).
Mental health crisis emerges one is unable to manage their stress because they feel it is overwhelming or overpowering them. An individual’s daily functioning is disrupted making them unable to carry out activities that contribute to the well-being of the community (OECD-WHO-Eurostat, 2013). The disruptions come in many forms including psychotic experiences such as hallucinations, paranoia feelings, panic attacks/ anxiety, acts of self-harm and relapse of a serious mental illness. This paper looks at the mental crisis in health care and how it affects New York City (NYC) life.

The Mental Health Crisis in the Health Care

Lack of support from the government

The governments are not fully supporting the mental health institutions in their countries. The government should help the mental health care by coming up with funding procedures to these health cares. Funds should be provided so that they can access quality facilities and medicine that is used to treat patients. Funding will also encourage more people to become mental specialists because that will mean they will not be facing a lot of challenges. Therefore, a stable psychological health status in a given country can only be attained when there is sufficient support from the national administration (Smith & Normand, 2009).
The government should also help the mental health care make the people aware of what leads to psychological problems. The approach will help other people appreciate those people with mental issues without isolating themselves. Controlling seclusion leads to depression and for this treason it is hard for patients to recover (National Coalition on Health Care, 2007). For example, it should come up with laws that restrict discrimination against people with mental problems. The government can make people view the psychological problem as another form of physical disability. Educating people to reduce isolations amongst the victims will help reduce instances of suicide and depression and therefore mental health cares will have manageable patients. Such controls to enhance better mental health state of a nation are attained through the governmental implementation of laws and regulations which promote a good health status.

Financial barriers

The financial barrier is a crisis that is faced by most mental health care institutions. The government does not fund them enough to pay for the services and resources given to patients. So patients have to provide money for themselves so that they can be treated well. There are those patients with adequate health insurance and those that lack health insurance. Even those with insurance, they have to get money because the insurance does not cover everything. It becomes a challenge to the health care because if there is no money the mental health professionals are not able to get the required facilities to treat their patients (WHO, 2010). Therefore, the sufficient funds are essential for the satisfactory improvement of the mental system in the healthcare because it drives all the activities.
Unlike some physical disease that is cured just by medicine or surgery, mental problems treatment takes time; it needs consistency in its treatment. Psychological problems need continued medical care counseling, and medication. Very few patients can afford sufficient funds for such services. Lack of the ability to receive the necessary healthcare makes the patients more disturbed because they are stressed about the financial issue. The aspect may lead to further leads to more complications in their health system. For example, some may get depression and sometimes suicide because of lack of psychiatric sessions. Such a scenario presents a crisis that in the mental health care institutions. Therefore, there is need to curb the financial problems because they are harmful and may breed other issues in the system.
Due to financial problems, there are delayed discharges from mental health of the inpatient services. Those patients that are supposed to be discharged are left stuck in the hospital because they cannot be able to complete their bills. They start offering services so that they can cover their bills and this does not end because the more they stay the bill continues. The case creates more issues at the healthcare institutions since it presents a challenging scenario for the health practitioner leadership on the actions to take on the patients who lack sufficient money. The scenario even brings back the problem that had been dealt with, thus, no recovery (Barnes et al., 2017.

Shortage of mental health professionals

Most of the people that discover the health problems are physicians, and they have less knowledge about treating mental illness. Physicians are not well-trained to deal with mental problems, and they are also not willing to take their time to listen to other problems apart from the physical symptoms. Many health cares's faces a shortage of mental health professionals (Garland, 2014). Those that are there have to deal with a lot of patients, and enough attention is not paid to patients. The professionals that are there are also privately booked by those patients that have enough money, and they do not resist because the governments do not pay them well. Such cases make the professionals work for only a few hours so that they can attend to other patients. Therefore, the physicians are left to deal with things they do not understand very well.
Emergency rooms are mostly utilized as a form of care for those in crisis because the mental health professionals and service providers are primarily unavailable after working hours and on weekends. The hospitals are forced to put the patients in emergency rooms because they cannot turn people away. The mental health care patients are unnecessarily admitted or medicated until a mental health professional comes around. The case makes it hard for mental health care hospitals to operate (United Nations Population Division, 2007).
Workforce shortages in mental health institutions should be dealt with. People that have experiences with mental health issues should be employed to help deliver services. Psychological health courses should be designed and delivered to people to promote peoples well-being. It will also help the staff so that they do not have to do everything. A new design will release some pressure on the mental health crisis in health care. Thus, the approach will significantly help to curb the mental health crisis at the healthcare institutions.

Lack of enough beds for admission

There have been a lot of bed shortages in the past few years. Significant hospitals face scarcity of beds for psychiatric care. Bed shortages have made it hard for mental health care institutions to admit every patient. Some patients that have not even well recovered are discharged so that they can give space to others. It leads to overpopulation of patients at the mental health institutions which is one of the undesirable characteristics of the healthcare system. Overcrowding makes it difficult for mental professionals to deal with patients. Therefore, lacking sufficient bed resources has greatly contributed to the increased and poorly controlled mental health crisis on the globe.

Lack of post-treatment

Some vulnerable patients are discharged so that other patients can receive treatment and be admitted as inpatients. These patients that are released are left at risks of committing suicide because mental health teams do not check up on them shortly after discharge from the hospital (Sharma & Rush, 2014). The mental health care is supposed to ensure that those discharged receive a phone call or a visit to check up on them. Healthcare specialist is few and carrying out this task becomes tedious for them. Therefore, patients are put at a risk of harm and relapsing hence going back to the hospital.
When patients are left alone, and they don't get care after they leave the hospital coping alone can be difficult. Therefore they end up going back or being at a risk of taking their own lives or even harm themselves. Even though hospitals are under pressure of emptying beds, psychiatrists should carry out their responsibilities. This is one of the major mental health crisis faced by health cares.

Recurring patients

The case of the recurring patients is a problem that emerges every time because most patients are discharged before full recovery, and there are no arrangements that are made in place for them to be taken care of when out of the hospital. They mostly harm themselves of end up relapsing a state that necessitates going back to the hospital. Therefore, instead of getting new patients, the doctors end up treating the same patients (WHO, 2010). Usually, such scenarios come about because of pressure faced by mental professionals that lead to discharging and no follow up. It has been a problem to the mental health care institutions that have grown so much to become a crisis.
The Effect of Mental Health Crisis on NYC life

Economy impact

Mental health crisis has a huge effect on NYC life. NYC gives a lot of money to help people deal with the problems of mental health. It releases money to psychiatric hospitals and rehabilitation centers to help the institutions get medicines and other facilities that are needed to help them carry out their treatment of patients. The approach helps the economy to reduce the money that could have been channeled to do something else is channeled to mental health care (National Coalition on Health Care, 2007). Thus, the mental health crisis greatly affects the economy of the NYC life due to a lot of money pumped into the healthcare.
Mental crisis costs families and individuals lots of money. Families and individuals can have insurance that does not include mental health care, and therefore they have to treat themselves from their pockets. This leads to the economy reducing. People lose their jobs at the time of treating their illness and hence productivity of a country is diminished. When productivity reduces, the economy is greatly affected (Mariner, 2007).
High levels of crime are experienced when people lose their jobs, and this reduces the economy of NYC. For people to provide for their loved ones, they have to come up with a way they can get money. People run out of options and decide to carry out crimes, for example stealing from a bank which depreciates the economy. Also, lots of deaths occur due to a mental health crisis. There are those people who take their lives and others who die from depression. This costs NYC and the people because the bodies have to be made carefully.

Decreased productivity

Most people with mental health issues are mostly discriminated. Due to discrimination, even when people get better they reduce employee productivity at their workplaces. Employees that have had mental health problems are limited to some things that can increase productivity, for example, some are limited to some training programs, and even others forced to retire at an early age and send off with an enticing package (Smith & Normand, 2009).
The presence of the mental health problems make people feel helpless and lack interest in job responsibilities, career advancement and even the welfare of organizations. They feel like outsiders and therefore stop giving their ides because people look at them like they don't know what they are talking about. These people lack the motivation to work so that they can contribute to the society and therefore NYC productivity reduces because of this issues. There are also people who hold critical positions that have to be hospitalized for the mental health care, and those that take over their positions may not be as productive as then one they replaced.

Violence

Violence is one of the behaviors that is exhibited by those patients going through mental health care. Because of fewer rehabilitation centers and those people that cannot manage to pay for psychiatric sessions, they are released from the hospital even without full recovery. These people get to be violent when they get out of the institution. They affect the lives of those people around them because they have to be there all the time to make sure they don't beat up people to destroying other people properties. Most of the time that could be used to add value to the NYC society is spent taking care of them (Durresi et al., 2007).

Loss of young people

Most young people are losing their lives due to mental health. If thorough care is not taken, young people find it hard to handle stress, and they are committing suicide at a higher pace than other age groups. NYC is losing its future leaders and those that are supposed to take care of it to mental health. Most psychiatric sessions should be preserved for the younger generation. Therefore, the mental health crisis has significantly affected the nation to lose the young generation (WHO, 2010).

Conclusion

In conclusion, mental health crisis health care should be taken into consideration just like other healthcare institutions. The government should provide enough funds for the mental health care so that they can treat patients with effectiveness. The states should look for ways of increasing mental health professionals in the world and also improve other facilities like beds. When mental health is not treated with the seriousness it deserves, it brings problems to the society. The future of a nation lies in youths, and if most youths are lost due to mental health problems, then the world would lack future leaders and those people who should build the world.

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