A brief history on Australia’s mental health care begins in 1811 with the opening of the first Lunatic Asylum in Castle Hill NSW. The Australian’s in the 1800’s viewed mental illness as madness and related this to bad blood or character flaws. The authorities at the time managed mental illness by physical restraining patients, placing patients into isolation and control the patient’s lives. No real treatment was available for mental illness and the staff in this period consisted of untrained care assistants (Happell, 2007). Very little had change in the mid to late 1800’s, Medical superintendents are now in charge and the philosophy of the time increased to one of human care, although slowly. The asylums were often overcrowded and this resulted in custodial management (Happell, 2007). In 1867 Parliament begins to send patients with mental illness to asylum rather than prison. The 1900’s sees the …show more content…
This includes expanding of the nursing curricula; specialisation of mental health nursing begins, mental health problems viewed as an illness thus a curative focus begins and tranquilisers are developed. These tranquilisers lead to a pharmaceutical management of the patient rather than restraint and nurses begin to work therapeutically with patients on an individual level and within group settings (Happell, 2007). With these improvements in the 1970’s -1980’s psychiatric institutions were scaled down or closed. Smaller psychiatric units commenced operating in general hospitals, community care increased and the length of stay for the patient as inpatient was reduced. With community care in place a significant amount of patients were well managed in the home environment and are never admitted to hospitals (Happell, 2007). Currently patients are still well managed within the home environment with the assistance of the family and community support services creating a less restrictive environment for the
How do the issues facing those doing strategic planning differ from those doing tactical planning? Can the two really be
The traditional approach to the care of the mentally ill during the last 200 years was custodial, rather than therapeutic. This approach to “Psychiatric Care Delivery System” was introduced in India from Britain . Mental hospitals were established in isolated areas, often on the outskirts with the object of segregating the patient as troublesome and dangerous to their neighbors. The overriding concern was to protect the citizens without regard for appropriate care and cure of the ailing patients. As a consequence of this objective of the mental hospitals, the quality of care in such hospitals had been very poor. The inmates were subjected to indignity and humiliation for an indefinite period, and once admitted never recovered, or rehabilitated back in their family, but doomed to the inevitable end. The stigma of mental illness thus prevailed.
As medical advances are being made, it makes the treating of diseases easier and easier. Mental hospitals have changed the way the treat a patient’s illness considerably compared to the hospital described in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
In the 1800’s people with mental illnesses were frowned upon and weren't treated like human beings. Mental illnesses were claimed to be “demonic possessions” people with mental illnesses were thrown into jail cells, chained to their beds,used for entertainment and even killed. Some were even slaves, they were starved and forced to work in cold or extremely hot weather with chains on their feet. Until 1851, the first state mental hospital was built and there was only one physician on staff responsible for the medical, moral and physical treatment of each inmate. Who had said "Violent hands shall never be laid on a patient, under any provocation.
In the 1840’s, the United States started to build public insane asylums instead of placing the insane in almshouses or jail. Before this, asylums were maintained mostly by religious factions whose main goal was to purify the patient (Hartford 1). By the 1870’s, the conditions of these public insane asylums were very unhealthy due to a lack of funding. The actions of Elizabeth J. Cochrane (pen name Nellie Bly), during her book “Ten Days in a Mad-House,” significantly heightened the conditions of these mental asylums during the late 1800s.
Stuart, G. W. (2009). Principles and Practice of Psychiatric Nursing (9th ed. pp 561). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier Mosby.
Calma, T. & Dudgeon, P. 2013, Mental health gap must be addressed, The Australian, .
Mental health nurses are exposed, due a lack of community support, low staffing levels, stigma and client pressures including the risk of violence, The increasing number of mental health patient compare to the decreasing number of beds and capable staff, means that mental health nurses are spending less time per patient and potentially providing a minimum quality of care level , Moreover, mental health nurses are dealing with caring for patients in inappropriate settings, with a reduced level of ,all factors leading to an increase in stress and burnout (Barling, 2001, p. 252; MHCA, 2005, p. 3)
The BBC documentary, Mental: A History of the Madhouse, delves into Britain’s mental asylums and explores not only the life of the patients in these asylums, but also explains some of the treatments used on such patients (from the early 1950s to the late 1990s). The attitudes held against mental illness and those afflicted by it during the time were those of good intentions, although the vast majority of treatments and aid being carried out against the patients were anything but “good”. In 1948, mental health began to be included in the NHS (National Health Service) as an actual medical condition, this helped to bring mental disabilities under the umbrella of equality with all other medical conditions; however, asylums not only housed people
Rather than preparing graduates in education or consulting as previous graduate nursing programs had done, this program educated psychiatric-mental health nurses as therapists with the ability to assess and diagnose mental health issues as well as psychiatric disorders and treat them via individual, group, and family therapy (ANA, 2014). Thus, the Psychiatric Mental Health Clinical Nurse Specialist (PMH-CNS), one of the initial advanced practice nursing roles (Schmidt, 2013), was born. After Community Mental Health Centers Act of 1963 led to deinstitutionalization of individuals with mental illness, PMH-CNSs played a crucial role in reintegrating formerly institutionalized individuals back into community life (ANA, 2014). PMH-CNSs have been providing care in a wide range of setting and obtaining third-party reimbursement since the late 1960’s. In 1974 a national certification for PMH-CNSs was created (APNA, 2010). Subsequently, PMH-CNSs began to be granted prescriptive privileges in the Pacific Northwest in the late 1970s, that practice has now spread to 37 states and the District of Columbia (APNA,
Critical to understanding the extent of the problem is a clear definition of mentally ill, “a person suffering from mental illness and, owing to that illness, there are reasonable grounds for believing that care, treatment or control of the person is necessary for the person’s own protection from serious harm, or for the protection of others from serious harm” [Mental Health Act 2007 (NSW)]. Noting that the statute specifies the ‘control’ of this group which adds to the notion that people with mental health problems are inherently more dangerous members of our society. Furthermore mental health problems within the prison system (inmate population) are estimated to be three to four times higher than in the general Australian popula...
For many decades the mentally ill or insane have been hated, shunned, and discriminated against by the world. They have been thrown into cruel facilities, said to help cure their mental illnesses, where they were tortured, treated unfairly, and given belittling names such as retards, insane, demons, and psychos. However, reformers such as Dorothea Dix thought differently of these people and sought to help them instead. She saw the inhumanity in these facilities known as insane asylums or mental institutions, and showed the world the evil that wandered inside these asylums. Although movements have been made to improve conditions in insane asylums, and were said to help and treat the mentally ill, these brutally abusive places were full of disease and disorder, and were more like concentration camps similar to those in Europe during WWII than hospitals.
Continuing budget cuts on mental health care create negative and detrimental impacts on society due to increased improper care for mentally ill, public violence, and overcrowding in jails and emergency rooms. Origins, of mental health as people know it today, began in 1908. The movement initiated was known as “mental hygiene”, which was defined as referring to all things preserving mental health, including maintaining harmonious relation with others, and to participate in constructive changes in one’s social and physical environment (Bertolote 1). As a result of the current spending cuts approaching mental health care, proper treatment has declined drastically. The expanse of improper care to mentally ill peoples has elevated harmful threats of heightened public violence to society.
The “moral approach” to treatment of mental illnesses went through many cycles. After World War II during the French Revolution is when psychotherapy and changes to mental health started to advance. The changes in mental illness stemmed from changes in ideas of how hospitals should be ran and the treatment of patients. As stated in our text book by Palmon, Weikel and Borsos (2006) during the 1790s Philippe Pinel started to revolutionize the way his mental hospital was ran in Paris, France. Philippe Pinel’s major adjustments were during the French Revolution, which was a time of inspiration, governmental change and free thinking. This was possibly the motivation and idea shifts which helped change Pinel’s ideas and concern of the approach to
Proper treatment of the mentally ill was not enforced until the late 20th century. People with mental illnesses were mistreated, misdiagnosed, and misunderstood. For centuries, people feared those who had any sort of mental issue. Families were disgraced if they had a disabled child and many of those children were shunned and discarded. In the 18th century, mental asylums were full of people who would be now diagnosed with Autism, PTSD, ADD, ADHD, depression, eating disorders, addiction, hoarders, schizophrenia, anti-socialites, or people who just like to read ‘too much’. Even though mental asylums were finally cleaned up and reformed, people were still afraid and confused by those with mental disorders. People in general did not know how to