life expectancy for people with mental health issues

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well if capitalism = longer life, it doesn't apparently apply to people with serious mental health issues. i came across this article, and while the basic premise didn't surprise me, the actual disparity in life expectancy is, i think, rather shocking.

http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/press/pressrel ... tancy.aspx

cant say im surprised,

I wonder how would that change if there was the right to die. I.e. if a person with a serious mental illness would be offered a choice to die after undergoing unsuccessful treatment. If the person said yes money saved would be spent to improve the service for other patients.

and what is failed treatment of a mental patient??

If a patient decides to go. Or, rather, not to go to another treatment.

the thing is that a treatment might not be the answer,

i have been through my share,

yet it was only when i stopeed caring about normality, treatments and the like i started to truly enjoy myself.
it took years to get to where i am mentally and physically today but none of it came from any planned treatment.

so what happens to the people that are i a bad place and thus are inclined to commit suicide, when someone actually offers them that,

they might say yes but i would posit it would be impossible to discern if its actually what they want or something else entirely.

now where the right to die truly plays in are people where its a direct and inevitable physical reason for it,
people that suffer with no chance of recovery and with the prospect of a long and horrible decline ahead of them for an example,

not saying that there is no mental equivalent but i do think we know far too little to be able to discern who stands a chance of improving or not.

any talk about right to die/euthanisia in relation to mental health is a moral minefield when issues such as impaired decision making/capacity are considered.

in terms of treatment, i find it difficult to understand the insistence on continued long term medicating of supposedly treatment resistant people. i'm sure the side effects of years of high dose psychiatric medication is a big factor here.

Which shows that we need more knowledge, better care.
Yes and that's why some help should be offered at first. However I believe in free will and if a person truly wants to die then let it be so. (Most of our choices are irrational and it would be better done (and are being done) for us.) Maybe with a legal sanity check which is well defined. The suffering caused by mental illness is no less real. It's a chronic debilitating pain - day in day out. And what are the chances of a recovery from a serious mental illness? Everyone should have a right to die, but it's only physical pain that people are able to empathize with.
On the same note I think death should be accepted and even celebrated the same as life is. This absolute clinging to life is irrational and not universal, it's a culural issue (it is universal but there is a significance difference between cultures). And I guess it doesn't matter people still choose as they wish but what gets to me that apparently the right to die is such a taboo that it turns againts itself and prevents people from getting help.
So far any decision to die is considered to be impaired and 'not what a person really wants'.

i might be misunderstanding you. are you suggesting that a decision to die would be best made by someone other than the person who would be dying?



the problem obviously is that no robust test will find those with the most serious and enduring mental health issues as having capacity to make such a decision. at present society doesn't even accept such a decision by "sane" people as being an informed choice as you mention below. imagine a scenario where healthcare professionals allowed someone to make such a decision and it was challenged by relatives who disputed the persons decision making capacity. as i say, it is a moral and ethical minefield.



i agree with this.



exactly. i am of the opinion that a rational and informed choice on the taking of ones life is indeed possible.

Sorry for not being clear, no absolutely not, that was an attempt to mock those who think that it would, I'm saying that this logic results in the fact that many decisions should then be made for us. People insist on choice but when it comes to the right to die it somehow disappears. We cannot allow ourselves to be selectively irrational because it is even more irrational. Lets just be for the choice all the way.

Yes in the extreme cases maybe so.. I'm not an expert but I'd think that there should be a way. I am sure there must be at least one valid case to go from there. Unfortunately there won't be enough social will to push this through as it does not affect so many people, I suppose.
Perhaps I'm having in mind a general right to die when it would be denied only if a person is not sane. Which is all very radical in the eyes of our society which I fail to understand why. As you said - that is apparently quite a minefield..

i agree a person should have that right,
everyone does you can simply go and do it,

now you say there should be a way, but that doesnt make it so and even the best psychology is only in its infancy in actually understanding human behavior and the effects we have on eachother,
i agree if we really could be a hundred percent sure that it was a rational well informed decision there might be a way, now odd thing is i dont really know what it is you think should be done.

i mena only yourself can commit a suicide as such and i dont think that that is a burden one can ethically push onto another, so what would the actual practical implications be?

The same lack of knowledge can serve as an argument for being allowed to die regardless of one's mental state - it's only a matter of one's choice (if one can make a coherent statement one is good to go).
Maybe suicide in secrecy is much more fun. But some are too ill to do even that and so should be helped if they wish.
If you mean practical procedure: (1) There is always someone who can do the job (2) Needles and gas bags can be used by the person with no assistance (3) Debts can be repayed with your organs

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeea43Q2Wss[/youtube]

That's ok, don't really want to live till 80 anyways.

I held my breath for 1 min and 30 seconds. I tried telling my brain that by blindly clinging to oxygen and life it was being irrational; the argument lasted about another 3 seconds before I gave up and inhaled.

I don't see what you mean.