The Most Depressing Place In Britain.

[Wheesht]

nearly everyone i speak to at work is on anti depressants

Could it be that your job is depressing?!

 

Na na min, he/she works at the chemist and they have a big box full they sit on in the tea room.

[Marvin]

 

Ahem anyway, in a feeble attempt to get back on topic, can anyone name anything good that came out of "Broom-oy" land "loyk", (apart from the moment the Bucks fizz lasses ripped off their skirts in "making your mind up")

 

SLADE!!!

[Muppet]

not sure where shetland health board get their figures from regarding depression, nearly everyone i speak to at work is on anti depressants, this is more than the national average

 

Just to attempt to put some balance into your statement. I honestly cant think of anyone I know who has ever taken anti depressants to my knowledge. I appreciate that many people wouldnt go shouting it from the rooftops, but 'nearly everyone' seems a pretty high figure to me.

[pert]

I believe that the national average is 'some folk'.

[Ghostrider]

Ahem anyway, in a feeble attempt to get back on topic, can anyone name anything good that came out of "Broom-oy" land "loyk", (apart from the moment the Bucks fizz lasses ripped off their skirts in "making your mind up")

 

Well, their city name had it's uses in making a late 70's Barron Knights' parody song work, but beyond that they've aways seemed pretty superfluous to me.

[pert]

.....he filled my teeth with iron.

[Ghostrider]

.....he filled my teeth with iron.

 

Keep goin.....I canna mind the rest.

 

I just mind a few priceless moments from the Video....The bit that accompanied the line........".....to the right"......."NO! The right!!, was particularly memorable.

 

That says something for my sense of humour I suppose.

[pert]

All I can recall is:

 

There's a dentist in Birmingham,

He fixed my mouth,

And when I went to sleep,

He filled my teeth with iron.

 

I remember, as a child, sitting by a single speaker tape recorder and becoming rapidly tired of it. I had no idea a video had been made.

 

Some of the things which stick in my head truly terrify me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boney-m, y'all

[Ghostrider]

 

Some of the things which stick in my head truly terrify me.

 

It's a common affliction, I think we all suffer from it.

 

My only abiding memory of it is seeing it on Top of the Pops on the hostel TV (I think it was the hostel anyway), an activity which only happened as a last resort when the weather was too bad for hanging around the street, or heading across to Isleburgh. If my memory serves, that would have been 78/79.....God, I feel old now.

[vailron]

i work within nhs shetland

[Ghostrider]

not sure where shetland health board get their figures from regarding depression, nearly everyone i speak to at work is on anti depressants, this is more than the national average

 

i work within nhs shetland

 

So you're saying a large majority of the people we entrust with our health care, some giving life altering advice, and making life altering decisions on our behalf, have depression issues, including, to borrow a phrase, are "tanked up on happy pills".

 

If so, that, bluntly, is an extremely scary and concerning reality.

[Njugle]

not sure where shetland health board get their figures from regarding depression, nearly everyone i speak to at work is on anti depressants, this is more than the national average

 

i work within nhs shetland

 

So you're saying a large majority of the people we entrust with our health care, some giving life altering advice, and making life altering decisions on our behalf, have depression issues, including, to borrow a phrase, are "tanked up on happy pills".

 

If so, that, bluntly, is an extremely scary and concerning reality.

 

Sorry ghostrider, but that is the kind of prejudice that stigmatises mental health issues, and thus, is counterproductive. I don't think there is any evidence to suggest that anti-depressants impair reason or judgement, whereas depression and stress have been proven to through evidence based research. Health care professionals endure stresses that the rest of us can hardly imagine.

 

I would do some searches for links on this but my arms in a sling today and one fingered LH typing is a pain

[Ghostrider]

Njugle, I have no quibble with your statements. Perhaps I could have worded my original comments differently, as I did not intend to insinuate the use of anti-depressants could compromise an individual's judgement or competency levels. At least someone receiving treatment for the condition "should" possess judgement and competency levels comparable to a non-sufferer. Notwithstanding the fact an additional level of risk is introduced in to the equation, from the possible variables of the sufferer not having been prescribed adequate treatment, or possibly not administering their prescribed treatment correctly. That said, most certainly in almost all cases an individual suffering from undiagnosed and untreated depression and/or high stress levels, must be considered to have far greater compromised judgement and competency levels.

 

The point I was trying to highlight was to call in to question if the Health Service was behaving in a responsible manner towards both their employees and clients/patients, apparantly employing high levels of staff with mental health issues, without any meaningful "in-house" monitoring to both help identify undiagnosed sufferers and/or monitor if diagnosed suffers were recieving adequate treatment. Also, to call in to question, the responsibility of individual employees, who once diagnosed, continue to work in, as you quite rightly state, an extremely high stress enviornment, which can only aid in excerbating their existing condition.

 

Almost all front line heath service employees routinely make decisions, and/or administer treatments/medications multiple times daily, which quite literally have a hair's breadth of difference between saving life and performing "miracle" cures, and causing severe injury, permanent disability or death. No other grouping of individuals are entrusted with such far reaching powers concerning so many people, as to whether an individual's life continues as normal from there on out, suddenly becomes a living hell of disablement, or is terminated there and then. Yet it would seem that anyone who can pass the initial entry examination process, can then continue for up to the next 40+ years performing life or death decisions and administrations, without any realistic monitoring by their empoyer, that they are still mentally competent to perform these tasks with full judgement and competency.

 

I'm sorry if it offends, but if the above is an accurate portrayal of how our Health Service is run, and from the comments made by the previous posters, it is the only conclusion I can reach. Then, yes, I find that information, personally, both extremely scary and concerning. I intend no disrespect to either anyone who suffers from mental health issues, or anyone who works in the Health service, however as an individual I reserve the right to my opinion on how the Heatlh Service spends the tax £££'s they force me to pay for it, and the quality of service that is delivered to me when I require it. That's all I was stating above, and now, my opinion.

 

Personally, I can have no faith or trust in the judgement or competency of an individual who is relying on mood altering drugs (which is what anti-depression treatment is to the best of my knowldge) to function adequately, or in the judgment and competency of an individual who is not part of ongoing mental health monitoring, to make decisions concerning what is best for my future good health and/or life, or the complete lack of either or both. I had, up to this point, apparently naively assumed that given the grave and far reaching consequences of anything less than 100% performance 100% of the time by all health workers, that their employer would have had an intensive and strict monitoring regime in place, and an extensive and open policy which was well known to all employees concering mental health and accociated issues. This apparently is not the case, and as such I will view our health service in general, and the level of faith and trust I have in it, with a whole other heightened level of concern and distrust the next time I have the misfortune to have need to attempt to try and use it.

[Atomic]

Mental Health problems are common in all sectors of the Scottish community, but they vary greatly in their severity.

 

In the Psychiatric morbidity study of adults living in private households (2000) 22% of the adult population of Scotland were found to have a common mental health problem at some time in the 12 months before the survey.

Reference: ONS (2000) Psychiatric morbidity among adults living in private households.

 

 

One third of all GP consultations are due to mental health problems.

Reference: isd Continuous Morbidity Recording in General Practice 1998

 

 

Depression was the most common condition recorded at GP consultations in Scotland in 2000.

Reference: isd Scotland general practice statistics 2000

 

As seen above, statistically this can be taken to mean that about one in 5 Scottish adults will suffer from some form of common mental health problem in any year.

 

However it is extremely important to acknowledge the varying degrees to which sufferers are afflicted. Many people with mild anxiety or substance abuse problems (including alcohol) for example are medically defined as Mentally Ill but are entirely capable of leading a perfectly normal and successful life, both professionally and personally.

 

Don't let the words "Mental Illness" mislead you into thinking that everyone under this umbrella term is a risk to society or incapable of functioning, because if you do you are including such a large proportion of people that the thought could lead to you developing a stress-induced anxiety disorder!

 

 

Of course, for those who are suffering from more severe (rare) Mental Disorders, it is quite obvious to those around them that they are not well, and no-one who is a colleague of someone in a highly responsible job, while seeing that they are not functioning as normal, would allow them to continue if anyone else's health was at risk, especially in the Health Professions.

[Ghostrider]

.....no-one who is a colleague of someone in a highly responsible job, while seeing that they are not functioning as normal, would allow them to continue if anyone else's health was at risk, especially in the Health Professions.

 

On this point we may just have to agree to disagree. While it is most probably true in 90+% of cases, it cannot be relied upon. Much depends on how much of their condition is evident to their colleagues, many professionals adopt as a matter of form a type of "Jekyll & Hyde" personality, whereby their clients see their "professional" face, and their colleagues see their "private" face. Concerning behaviours can come to light in their "professional" persona, where they most likely are dealing with strangers, or semi-strangers, and situations demanding instant of quick assessments and decisions causing them additional stress, that are not particularly evident in more relaxing casual circumstances in the company of colleages. It also relies upon the level of professionalism their colleagues posess, as to how much attention they are paying and how clued in they are to how a certain individual is, and also whether any of those colleagues perhaps possess a misguilded loyalty towards the individual in question, and naturally want to "cover" for them as long as they possibly can. In certain speheres of health care individuals operate much, if not most of their working day, alone. As such it is difficult, if not impossible for colleagues to detect issues unless they are severe. Mostly in those circumstances the level of disquiet in the community they serve, the level of complaints made against them by their clients/patients, and the higher than expected level of unexpected hospital admissions/referrals for complications of minor ailments, which originate from that person's patients/clients is what alerts their employers. This, in certain cases can take quite some time to occur, and very likely by then the known number of individuals who have suffered at that person's incompetence is only a small percentage of the true total, and the number of fatalities a matter that can only be suppositions and estimations at best.

 

I could state names, places, dates, actions and inactions from personal experiences, in support of much of what I've said, but a public message board is not the place for that. The vast majority of health workers perform amazingly, in a difficult, thankless and depressing profession, and cannot be praised or appreciated highly enough. But, like every profession, the barrel has too many rotten apples which let the side down badly, in most professions a certain level of incompetence and neglience can be carried reasonably safely, the health service however, in my opinion, is one that cannot tolerate any level of incompetence and neglience whatsoever. The general public at large, and the Health Service workers in particular, are, in my opinion, both being let down quite badly by the apparent cavalier attitude or denial levels of Heatlh Service management, in there apparently not being any monitoring or assessing their workers mental health on an ongoing basis, when they are routinely expected to perform such accurate and dangerous tasks on multiple individuals on an ongoing daily basis.