Community mental health services are reserved for the people who are suffering from mental illnesses. Health care facilities such as specialized hospitals for people with mental disorders initially provided the services. The coming of reforms in this sector has led to the closure of many mental hospitals because of violation of patients’ rights.
Most mentally ill persons were neglected in mental hospitals (Atkinson, 2006). It is perceived that the ignorance in mental hospitals was caused by the sudden increase of patients. Besides that, Richards and Campania (2010) explain that the mental hospitals were not serving their intended purpose of meeting the needs of the mentally ill, but one expected that for every mental hospital that is closed a community-based center replaces it.
This would bring the services closer to the people who need them the most. The establishment of mental hospitals may have been a noble idea, but there are many people who continue to suffer in silence because they cannot afford the required money to send their loved ones to such institutions.
Similarly, the quality of service delivered in mental hospitals was very poor probably due to congestion. According to Golightley (2004), prior to the implementation of the changes many mentally retarded person could not get access to medical services because the insurance companies had barred them from taking medical cover. This means that unless friends and relatives help such persons, their health will continue to deteriorate.
It is in this regard that insurance companies are being encouraged to streamline their requirements to make insurance cover affordable to many people. This is because currently it is mostly the employed who are able to buy insurance products. This implies that governments have to combine efforts to assist the people who are in extreme poverty by paying for their mental health services (Power, 2010).
Weare (2000) contends that the reforms in mental health services require the government to hire more medical personnel. This is because lack of enough personnel has been sighted as one of the core reasons for the decline in the quality of mental health services. This suggests that governments have to borrow more money because as new experts are being hired there is also technology and infrastructure, and all of these are to be carried out by governments.
That is why non-governmental and private entities are required to help in improving the delivery of mental health services. Among the approaches employed in improving service delivery in this sector is the incorporation of mental health centers with existing general health care centers and establishing new ones at the community level. When services are brought closer to the people, there is no excuse of not accessing them (Atkinson, 2011).
The major hurdle in implementing changes in mental health services has been lack of money to facilitate the construction of new facilities and recruitment of more personnel. It is expected that once these measures are put in place the quality of mental health services will go up because there will be many service providers, and thus there will be stiff competition (Golightley, 2004).
This means that mental health service providers will have to improve their work and reduce their service charge rates. Presently, people are simply taking what is available because they do not have alternatives (Segal & Segal, 2011). However, there are several options that can be used to solicit funds for the implementation processes. Power (2010) suggests that one of the most common methods entails taxation and borrowing money from the public through treasury bonds.
In addition, governments can make mental health insurance compulsory through taxation and social insurance. The government should also instill a law to make sure that each person has an insurance coverage, and failure to this implies that they are subject to fines. This will ensure that anybody who needs metal health care can easily get it. Employers should ensure that their employees are having an insurance coverage to qualify for better health care providers such as Medicaid.
Richards and Campania (2010) agree that the emerging data-oriented healthcare will aid in providing the number of mentally ill inhabitants in a given area as well as more manageable health records in electronic form as compared to the traditional health care. These records assist the health providers to store patient’s data and examine their health improvements.
According to Power (2010), the health care providers are coming up with ways to have all their patients’ health record stored electronically because this will manage and reduce the cost of record keeping. The health care providers will be capable of accessing patients records, which may be in another state, and this will be enabled by a software system. These records will also be accessible to the patients.
Online health care systems will help the patients to prevent chronic diseases by learning how to manage and prevent them. With these medical reforms, it will enhance communication between doctors will be capable of analyzing the patient’s conditions from different locations.
The healthcare act, approved in 2010 in Unites States, has set a standard for insurance care that is bought by companies and individuals. It has also increased chances of Medicaid access by making sure that a large number of mental health patients were are capable of getting covers from Medicaid.
The law also permitted the health care providers to give demonstrations with tests of how to treat patients, which is meant to improve on mental health care. The law has also put in place the long-term reforms of care of the mental challenged patients while also encouraging opening of more medical homes based on mental health (Segal & Segal, 2011).
The reforms in health care cannot be complete without the reforms of the mental care professionals. These professionals include the psychiatrists, social workers, nurses and counselors. If more training is given, they will be capable of dealing with complex conditions and provide better health services to the mental patients.
With each professional skills differing, they should be trained, considering the level at which they are able to handle disorders because the role of a psychiatrist cannot be compared to that of a nurse. Specialists should also enhance their relationship with patients to give better service thus the patients will be able to communicate their feelings (Power, 2010).
In this regard, the worldwide mental health has come out to help in the research, learning, and applying skills. Its focus is improving the mental health while making sure those patients, especially from less developed countries, get equal opportunities just like the others in developed countries while considering the cultural and political differences.
Atkinson (2006) conforms that with the global mental reforms, the mental care needs have been established together with identification of different conditions in each country. Patients will now be able to get treatments of conditions, which were not treatable in their countries because of diversity of many professionals from all over the globe.
In conclusion, health care providers should improve mental health care so that it can be affordable to all. In the US, these care services are not fully extended to the black population. They should be set up in several places so that they can be accessible to every patient.
This will be achieved if mental health professional will monitor and give care to everybody in the society and the government should hire mobile mental health care providers since it is the citizen’s right to have equal access to health care services and quality health care, despite their financial status and backgrounds.
References
Atkinson, J. (2006). Private and Public Protection: Civil Mental Health Legislation. Edinburg: Dunedin Academic Press.
Golightley, M. (2004). Social Work and Mental Health Learning Matters. New York: McGraw Hill.
Power, A. K. (2010). Transforming the Nations Health: Next steps in Mental Health Promotion. American Journal of Public Health, 100 (12), 2343-2346.
Richards, K.C. & Campania, C. (2010). Self Care and Wellbeing in Mental Health Professionals. The Mediating Effects of Self-awareness and Mindfulness. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 32 (3), 247.
Segal, M. S. & Segal, J. (2011). Improving Emotional Health: Health guide. New York: McGraw Hill.
Weare, K. (2000). Promoting Mental, Emotional and Social Health. A Whole School Approach. London: Routledge.