The Cost Of Mental Health Care

Those basic needs such as health care create obstacles for those with disabilities as well. Mental health care is unbelievably expensive as shown by the quote, “Depression is estimated to cost the EU €41 billion in direct costs and €77 billion in productivity losses. This compares to €35 billion in productivity losses for cardiovascular disease” (“The Effect”). This is also interesting because cardiovascular disease is one of the leading causes of death in the world today, yet depression raises so many more costs. Not only are mental health issues more expensive, they’re more common than one might realize as well: “One in four (132.4 million) Europeans are affected by mental health problems every year. This resulted in an economic cost of

Why then is this area of healthcare both so expensive and common? One reason could be in the professionals in the field themselves. Mental health care professionals may request higher pay or more vacation time because “they deal with dangerous patients-although they have publicly proclaimed that mental illness is a disease like any other” (Sartorius). These professionals are supposed to advocate for their patients in society because of the stigmas surrounding them, yet these stigmas in turn allow them to ask for higher pay because society stereotypes their work as being extremely taxing. These facilities sometimes take advantage of the stereotypes of their work in the quality of care their patients receive as well. For example, the World Health Organization’s Mental Health Policy Coordinator, Michelle Funk, commented on the quality of care people with mental health disabilities receive. She says, “people in mental health facilities often are exposed to high levels of abuse and violence...Their living conditions are inhumane and the treatment they receive is degrading… people can be over medicated to keep them docile and easy to manage”

This would obviously affect children or teens with disabilities, despite the fact that schools are supposed to be a safe place for young students. Part of a teacher’s job is to help any student when they need it, especially considering they see the student approximately seven hours a day, five days a week. Despite this, “A quarter of young disabled people report feeling discriminated against in school...34% felt they did not get the help and support they needed from teachers and other staff” (Curtis). Students with disabilities do have certain differences from other students and in turn may be more difficult to deal with but, “More than a third (38%) said they had been bullied because of their disabilities, with one in 20 saying their bullies had been teachers” (Curtis). Bullies have to find something different about a person to have a reason to discriminate against them, and people with disabilities have that different quality. The bully may use this disability against the person because stigmas in our society have taught them it’s okay to discriminate against the disabled. Some people don’t experience this bullying, but they still may not get equal or appropriate treatment. Nathan Liu again spoke about his time in school saying, “My teachers acted super antsy around me…[they] didn’t know how to act around me...disabled kids were the ones who got hidden away in ‘special’ classrooms. They