Posted by Mark H. on March 13, 2000, at 13:58:16
Many thanks to Chris A., Bob, Janet R., Janice and others for their warm welcome to this forum.
Twenty years ago I was on one of the California Area Boards for Developmental Disabilities, and part of the pioneering work that the parents and others had done before us was to advocate and secure the passage of wide-reaching state legislation giving the right to education and other support services for persons with developmental disabilities (mental retardation, Downs Syndrome, autism, etc.). Part of our role as a board was to assure that the law was being implemented and the services were in fact being provided and monitored for quality and compliance, both by private providers and the quasi-public regional centers.
Since then, the Americans with Disablities Act was passed at the federal level, granting tremendous protection against discrimination to all people with disabilities. Again, while the protections are legally in place, it is up to the individual consumer and her or his family, teachers, attorneys and other advocates to ensure that not only the letter but the spirit of the law is being met by employers, schools and others.
I use the term "consumer" rather than "patient" when talking about health care, especially mental health care, because it is easy to forget that we are the buyers and have both the right and the responsibility to ask questions, participate in the decisions, and seek other opinions and options when we receive inferior, dismissive or questionable advice or treatment.
For instance, there are psychiatrists who do not prescribe medication at all, or only for in-patients. You have the right to know of this bias from the receptionist at the time you inquire about an appointment. It is not something you should wait 6 weeks and pay $180 to find out! I respect the religious freedom of Scientologists, but their crusade against psychiatry and psychiatric medication is not something I want to deal with in my health care.
A woman I don't know wrote to me this morning asking what else she can do for a teenage son who sleeps all the time, is depressed, and is falling behind in his scholastic and social development. I can't answer that question from anything like a medical perspective (I'm a grants administrator, not a doctor), but I'm amazed that she hasn't approached the matter with her son's teachers and the school's administration from the standpoint of ASKING (always ask -- never threaten --) what the school is doing to accommodate her son's disability. Just the use of that one magic word, "Disability," along with written documentation of responses, can make an enormous difference as to whether this young man is shuffled aside and forgotten or given extra attention, assistance, diagnosis and treatment so that he can complete his studies and either enter the workplace or continue on to college.
Each of us needs to advocate for ourselves and all other people with mental illness by accepting responsibility for our actions and limitations while also insisting that we be treated with dignity and receive the best possible care and consideration.
Thanks for listening.
poster:Mark H.
thread:26871
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000312/msgs/26871.html