In Poland, the mentally ill are discriminated against, say psychiatrists. Meanwhile, WHO estimates that mental disorders affect every fifth person in the world. There will be more and more patients, because we live in an increasing hurry and chronic stress, in addition, we spend too little time and rarely rest. This lifestyle results in the appearance of neuroses and other anxiety disorders, depression and psychoses.
In recent years, in Poland, unlike in Europe, expenditure on the treatment of mental disorders has decreased among all diseases. For example, in Switzerland, public funds allocated to the treatment of mental disorders account for 12%, and the European average is about 5%. In Poland, on the other hand, over the last two years, outlays have fallen from approx. 3,7% to approx. 3%.
Poor and lonely
The mentally ill in Poland are poor. Most people with schizophrenia live on an invalidity pension. Only 2% work full-time. These patients are also mostly lonely. Most of them, however, require family help. National consultant in the field of psychiatry prof. Marek Jarema reminds that mentally ill people must obtain the consent of the court to marry. – Not only patients in hospitals, but all patients have to apply for consent. It’s completely unconstitutional, he says. Poles are not tolerant of people with mental disorders. They are not welcome in restaurants, shops or other public places.
Not enough doctors
You can go to a psychiatrist without a referral. However, there are too few psychiatrists, especially child psychiatrists. There are 200 of them in Poland, there should be 1500. Prof. Aleksander Araszkiewicz from Collegium Medicum in Bydgoszcz believes that too few people use psychiatrists’ advice. – People who suffer from mental disorders often try to heal themselves by reaching for alcohol. This leads to dramatic consequences. 30 percent all beds in psychiatric hospitals are occupied by patients who ended up there because of alcohol – he emphasizes. He adds that mental illness eliminates people who, if given the right help, could make up the most productive part of society. This is evidenced by the suicide statistics, for example. 40 percent all Poles who take their own lives are men aged 35 to 55.
Patient unwanted
Psychiatrists emphasize that their patients are discriminated against by other doctors. – If the family calls an ambulance to a mentally ill with a broken leg and during the examination it turns out that this patient is receiving psychiatric treatment, he will not be taken to an orthopedic ward, but to a psychiatric ward – says prof. Araszkiewicz. This is also the case when the mentally ill report to the hospital with heart problems. They are often interpreted as delusional caused by mental illness. Andrzej Warat, head of the Association of Families and Guardians of Mentally Ill People POL-FAMILIA, tells about a patient who came to the emergency room in Toruń with severe chest pain. When asked by the doctor if he had other diseases, he replied that he had paranoid schizophrenia, he was sent away from the emergency room without assistance. He died on a bench in the provincial hospital in Toruń of a heart attack. Patients with mental illnesses are more than twice as likely to die of a heart attack or stroke than mentally healthy people.
Also read: Schizophrenia is not a sentence
Dull and drooling
– If we enter a psychiatric hospital, we will meet anemic, dull, sweaty and drooling patients there. This is a side effect of prescribed drugs – says prof. Janusz Heitzman, president of the Polish Psychiatric Association. Unfortunately, access to modern preparations that do not cause such side effects is still insufficient. The regulations make it possible to treat patients with them only with diagnosed schizophrenia, the diagnosis of which can be made after 6 months of persistent psychosis. – This means that for 6 months a nineteen-year-old who goes to a doctor with the first symptoms of schizophrenia will be treated with drugs that eliminate him from society – says Prof. Heitzman. Patients cannot afford to pay the full cost of these drugs themselves. The monthly cost of treatment is the same as their pension. Psychiatrists emphasize that the fact that about 10% of patients with schizophrenia commit suicide is not always responsible for psychosis itself. Treatment is also too late.
Young patients
Schizophrenia is a mental illness that causes anxiety in our society, but we don’t know much about its symptoms. It affects 1% of society, it usually begins quite abruptly, but sometimes also slowly, insidiously. Characteristic for schizophrenia is the fact that young people develop it, men aged 15–24, women around 25–34. age. Symptoms of schizophrenia include visual disturbances, hallucinations, and disturbances in thinking, including delusions. Schizophrenia is relapsing and this is how about 80% of patients suffer. It has been proven that by applying modern treatment and treating the patient as a treatment partner, it is possible to significantly alleviate the course of the disease and enable the patient to have a fairly good personal and social functioning.
Text: Halina Pilonis
Also read: My beautiful, wise son