Poverty trail exiles mentally ill hundreds of miles from home

Published: 7 October, 2010
EDITOR'S COMMENT

AN extraordinary aspect of the cases we reveal on page 3 is that mentally ill patients have to be moved out of London – even at 48 hours notice – because  there are not enough special hospital  facilities for them in the capital.

Any form of scrutiny would soon establish that here we are following the poverty trail – a reminder that a great deal of sense emerges in Richard Wilkinson’s denunciation of our unequal society in his groundbreaking book, The Spirit Level.

Poverty cannot simply be measured in terms of salary, standard of housing and level of nutrition.

Life is appreciably better than in the hungry 1930s.  But large sections of the population still suffer from another kind of poverty – their lack of knowledge of how to thread their way through the complexities of society. 

Generally, those low down in the social pecking order are often baffled, for instance, by the many hurdles thrown up by the shortage of school places or medical facilities.   

They end up with bad choices – their decisions left to so-called experts.  Children can often go to the wrong school. Those in authority arrogantly take decisions over their heads.

Middle-class families, on the other hand, usually know how use the stepping stones to success.

Education and social position define poverty.

Today a growing number of people are falling victim to mental illnesses in our pressurised society.

But politicians seem to be indifferent.

They probably calculate there are not many votes to be garnered in that field.

As the economy shrinks, the situation for mentally ill patients gets worse.

In Camden and Islington, the situation in some ways is  scandalous. Now, the decision-makers have found a way out: Move patients out of London hundreds of miles away from family and friends. 

But mentally ill patients need to be treated holistically. Better to be kept in their own environment than in a hospital. 

But that costs money and investment – something politicians, at all levels, simply spurn.

• We have warned for some time that the Freedom Pass is under threat.

Politicians have pooh-poohed our warnings. But discussions in the transport committee of the London Councils organisation – it represents  borough councils in the capital – now shed light on a  growing crisis of funding (click here).

Basically, Transport for London appear to have decided that a shortfall of funding is looming – and they cannot expect to cover it. Even if sufficient funds are found for next year, what will happen after that?