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Conference Report: Diane Hackney The Mental Health Alliance agreed to have a march and rally against the Government’s proposals. This was to be an historic event as it was to be a united front of carers, mental health professionals, service users and survivors. However, then there were the events of Soham and Mental Health Alliance, in their wisdom, decided to cancel the march. Needless to say, 300 services users and carers decided to carry on with the march anyway! I remember some children inquisitively asking on the day, ‘what’s this all about?’ I replied, ‘do you know how horrible it is being bullied at school, that’s what the government are trying to do to those who feel distress’ When we arrived at Bethlam…..a policeman said ‘they’re not that bad, they’re quite a nice group of people’. In fact, later on at the lobby of parliament we were allowed to stand on parliament square (and the GLA usually say no to this) On the day of the lobby, someone inquired as to the amount of security. ‘Mad people are coming today to lobby parliament’ a security official replied. This perhaps gives some indication of what the government thinks of us. In the Jubilee room in the Houses of Parliament (where service users and survivors were giving speeches) I recall people saying they would rather kill themselves or live abroad than be subject to compulsory community treatment, they were also questioning whether this was a health bill or a social control bill. When Lynn and I went to meet the mental health csar, Louis Appleby, we asked him ‘who is the bill supposed to be protecting?’ ‘Members of the public’ he replied. ‘We are the public, aren’t we?’ we said. ‘Yes I suppose you are’ he replied. I pay taxes, I vote but apparently I am not a citizen of this country! Anyone can have a permit and forcibly give you medication in your own home, many people see this as assault Other health service users seem to be offered a choice of treatment, we as mental health service users don’t seem to have that choice. And a point on the current situation of people voluntarily staying in hospital through threat of sectioning. This is called ‘de facto sectioning’ and is, in fact, illegal. Just think what is going to happen if powers are extending into the community. Apparently there were over 2000 submissions to the Draft Bill consultation and the Government logged them but then unfortunately ‘lost’ some of them. I know Lynn was asked to resubmit hers. In fact Louis Applebly replied to this in saying ‘that doesn’t sound like us [Department of Health’] rather the Home Office’… This can only be bad news. NEXT:
Part One - The 'Daft' Mental Health Bill |
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