|
OUTCRY Conference Report: Mad Pride - Stop The Suicides Campaign Mad pride was conceived in 1997. Frank Dobson the new health Minister announced that “community care had failed”, after the media uproar that followed the publication of ‘The confidential inquiry into homicides and suicides by the mentally ill’ by professor William Boyd. Boyd identified 33 homicides in 18 months, about 22 a year which saw newspaper headlines such as “community care patients freed to kill one a fortnight” That same year the Maudsley and Bethlem NHS Trust celebrated, falsely, 750 years of psychiatry. Reclaim Bedlam a forerunner of Mad Pride saw nothing to celebrate and held alternative commemorative events. So often media images of users/survivors are negative and focus on the violent, vulnerable or victim status. Mad Pride seeks to engage the media with positive celebratory images from the grassroots. We see ourselves as the first great civil rights movement of the 21st Century, in common with other civil rights movements we reclaim a pejorative term and turn it from a term of abuse to one to celebrate - think of the words black and coloured and how they changed in acceptable use in the 1970’s. Mental health service user is a cumbersome term and can be seen as derogatory. Survivor is not understood by the majority of people and needs explanation, but most people use mad and know what it means. As a group, we are still in shock about the suicide of Pete, one of our leading lights and our most effective media spokesperson. A review of ‘Endless Love’ – a tribute video to Pete that appeared in the Advocate said, “Mad Pride doesn’t have a constitution or endless discussions – they don’t need to, they book a venue, organise some bands and do something” Stop the Suicides Although the media seem obsessed with homicides, they represent a very small number. About 25 out of 700 a year, plus 300 deaths by dangerous driving. Patients are much more likely to be killed by medication – about one a week according to professor Malcolm Lader, Royal College of Psychiatrists, or during constraint - about 165 a year, a third in the psychiatric system. However, there are about 6000 suicides a year. The government’s response is a Mental Health Bill that would increase compulsion, which would scare people away from services and may increase distress and the likelihood of suicide [Mad Pride then spoke of the demonstration outside the Royal Courts of Justice on 2/9/03] Contact Mad
Pride |
 |
