Royal College of Psychiatrists says impact on mental health often overlooked and calls for improvements in care
Nearly three-quarters of UK women do not know menopause can trigger a new mental illness, polling shows.
This lack of understanding is so acute that the Royal College of Psychiatrists has launched its first targeted “position statement” to raise awareness about menopause and mental health.
Continue reading...More than 150 psychiatrists sign letter condemning contract to host exams in country with well-documented human rights abuses
The Royal College of Psychiatrists is facing a backlash from members over a controversial partnership with Qatar’s state healthcare provider.
The college has signed a contract with the state-owned Hamad Medical Corporation to host international exams in Doha, enabling psychiatrists from across the Middle East and beyond to apply for membership.
Continue reading...Both parties have made closing submissions in their wage dispute before the NSW industrial relations tribunal
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Closing submissions have been heard in the long-running dispute between psychiatrists – who are pushing for a 25% pay increase – and the New South Wales department of health, bringing to a close a landmark legal action brought by the psychiatrists, who argue psychiatric care in NSW is facing “collapse” because of poor pay and conditions.
Over two days this week, the Industrial Relations Commission court in Sydney heard closing submissions from lawyers, before the full bench retired to consider their decision.
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Continue reading...Exclusive: Former staff tell Guardian Australia some HIV patients have since required acute mental health care, as hospital also loses specialist pain and eating disorder support staff
The resignation of psychiatrists from Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred hospital has led to the closure of an HIV psychiatry clinic with 200 patients, as well as a loss of specialist psychiatrist services for patients in the pain clinic and the most unwell eating disorder patients.
Minutes from a Royal Prince Alfred (RPA) and Balmain hospital medical staff council on 10 February, seen by Guardian Australia, also contain slides from a presentation about psychiatrist resignations that state “there is no HIV psychiatry clinic”.
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Continue reading...Patient care compromised by closing beds and shifting workload to less qualified staff, motion claims
The New South Wales Labor government is seeking to “redesign” the state’s mental health system without psychiatrists, despite the risks to patient care, its political rivals claim.
In a NSW legislative council meeting on Wednesday, the shadow assistant minister Susan Carter and the Greens’ health spokesperson, Dr Amanda Cohn, lambasted the Minns government’s handling of psychiatrists’ mass resignations, with Carter accusing the responsible ministers of having “sought to redesign our mental health system to work without specialist psychiatrists”.
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Continue reading...One psychiatrist raises concerns about proposed back-up arrangements as health officials rush to fill staffing gaps
More than 60 mental health beds in public hospitals are temporarily closing in New South Wales as some hospitals are being given directives to limit psychiatric assessments because of mass resignations.
A senior psychiatrist told Guardian Australia that the emergency plans to manage psychiatric patients will mean decisions on discharge or the need for further care will be delayed, causing bed blockages across the health system. The doctor spoke on condition of anonymity.
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Continue reading...Doctor calls situation ‘an absolute disaster’ for public mental health system and vulnerable patients
Mental health wards have begun to close in New South Wales as negotiations to avert the mass resignations of psychiatrists continue.
At Cumberland psychiatric hospital, the largest mental health facility in NSW and the oldest in Australia, the acute and rehabilitation wards have closed, and the NSW branch of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) predicts more will follow.
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Continue reading...Exclusive: Guardian Australia has seen an email from the director of Australia’s largest private mental health provider about the contract
The NSW government is considering moving public psychiatry patients into private hospitals in preparation for the mass resignation of the state’s psychiatrists next week, but doctors warn the panicked response will not help the “droves of people with significant illness and crises”.
At least 205 psychiatrists will resign on Tuesday after 16 months of negotiations over the workforce crisis, with the government not agreeing to the psychiatrist’s proposed solution – a special levy increasing their pay by 25%, similar to that which emergency doctors received in 2015.
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Continue reading...Distant placements found to have led to anxiety, PTSD and suicide in some cases, as use of them increases in England
Mental health patients in England are being harmed by the increase in placements in psychiatric units far from their homes and families, a new report indicates.
Patients have had anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), while some have died by suicide as a result of their distant placements, according to a Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) report, which drew on interviews with patients and their loved ones. The participants spoke of how their experiences had resulted in feelings of anger, frustration and a loss of trust in the mental health system.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
Continue reading...In the age of influencer therapists and mental health apps, experts say the public need to be better informed
From influencer therapists on social media to psychotherapy platforms advertising on TV and radio, going to see a therapist is increasingly mainstream – yet many people know little about who they are seeing and what they are getting.
Experts said more information and awareness among the public of how therapy works was desperately needed, to minimise the risks of making their mental health worse.
Continue reading...Patient says pharmacists she went to were suspicious because Vyvanse is a stimulant, causing her the ‘most dehumanising medical experience’ of her life
Emma* says she was made to feel “like a drug addict” for simply trying to access medication for her ADHD.
When she was prescribed Vyvanse in June, she was relieved to realise she had found a treatment that would make it easier to live with the developmental disorder that affects the brain’s executive functioning.
Continue reading...Psychiatrists cautiously welcome decision as Australia becomes the first country to officially recognise psychedelics as medicines
Psychiatrists have cautiously welcomed the ability to prescribe MDMA and psilocybin, saying it’s a “baby step in the right direction”.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration announced on Friday that, from July, approved psychiatrists would be able to prescribe MDMA (ecstasy) for post-traumatic stress disorder and psilocybin (found in magic mushrooms) for treatment-resistant depression.
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Continue reading...From July, authorised psychiatrists will be able to prescribe the drugs for post-traumatic stress disorder and severe depression
After decades of “demonisation”, psychiatrists will be able to prescribe MDMA and psilocybin in Australia from July this year.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration made the surprise announcement on Friday afternoon.
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Continue reading...Most seriously ill inmates left to wait in cells often due to bed shortages at secure hospitals, data shows
Hundreds of severely mentally ill prisoners in urgent need of hospital treatment are being left in prison cells due to bed shortages in secure NHS psychiatric units, an investigation has discovered.
Freedom of information (FoI) responses from 22 NHS trusts reveal for the first time that just over half of the 5,403 prisoners in England assessed by prison-based psychiatrists to require hospitalisation were not transferred between 2016 and 2021 – an 81% increase on the number of prisoners denied a transfer in the previous five years.
Continue reading...Some readers offended by its reference to high rates of mental illness among incarcerated people to attract psychologists
Psychologists who work for the bureau that runs federal prisons in the US can treat incarcerated people with every mental illness imaginable, according to an employment ad that stirred controversy on social media.
The ad, bought by the US Bureau of Prisons (BOP) on Facebook as part of a broader campaign, asks readers to flip to any page in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a standard US text.
Continue reading...My drinking and drug use pushed me over the edge into a complete breakdown. Then a stint in rehab made me question how much we really understand about addiction
I’m lying in bed when I hear the commotion. I peer through the doorway of my room, and right outside, the new guy is getting in Ruiz’s face. There’s a phone right outside the door, one of those sturdy metal payphones like one you’d see on a street corner, and Ruiz, a gentle older man with shoulders stooped by the demoralisation of his nth relapse and hospitalisation, is just trying to talk to his family. But the new guy has been manic and pacing since he arrived a few hours ago, and he won’t take no for an answer.
I watch the new guy stalk the other way across the doorway, muttering to himself, menacing even in retreat. Then a warning shout echoes from much too far in the distance, and he appears once again – flying, near horizontal – to tackle Ruiz, dragging him off the phone.
Continue reading...Is there something great you have always wanted to do, but fear has held you back? Make 2022 the year you go for it
The “comfort zone” is a reliable place of retreat, especially in times of stress – living through a global pandemic, for instance. But psychologists have long ƒextolled the benefits of stepping outsideit, too. The clinical psychologist Roberta Babb advises regularly reviewing how well it is serving you. The comfort zone can, she says, become a prison or a trap, particularly if you are there because of fear and avoidance.
Babb says people can be “mentally, emotionally, physically, socially, occupationally” stimulated by facing their fears or trying something uncomfortable. “Adaptation and stimulation are important parts of our wellbeing, and a huge part of our capacity to be resilient. We can get stagnant, and it is about growing and finding different ways to be, which then allows us to have a different life experience.”
Continue reading...Helping Darling to relax has been vital – but unlike a human, she isn’t dealing with the ethical and cognitive issues often involved in post-traumatic stress
The word trauma has been so overused that it can sound meaningless.
Yet there are profound effects on the body and mind following exposure to traumatic events. Our capacity to cope becomes overwhelmed and we feel helpless as the limbic system, which is the part of the brain associated with fight flight and freeze, goes into overdrive.
Continue reading...The actor on her hopes for Brixton’s new theatre, an offbeat western and the sophistication of African art
Adjoa Andoh was born in Bristol in 1963 and grew up in Wickwar, Gloucestershire. A veteran stage actor, she starred in His Dark Materials at the National Theatre and in the title role of an all-women of colour production of Richard II at the Globe in 2019. On TV, Andoh plays Lady Danbury in Bridgerton, which returns next year, and she will appear in season two of The Witcher on Netflix from 17 December. She lives in south London with her husband, the novelist Howard Cunnell, and their three children.
Continue reading...With up to one in five new mothers suffering depression or psychosis, experts say the need for help is ‘overwhelming’ India
A month after giving birth, Divya tried to suffocate her new daughter with a pillow. “There were moments when I loved my baby; at other times I would try and suffocate her to death,” says the 26-year-old from the southern Indian state of Kerala.
She sought help from women’s organisations and the women’s police station, staffed by female officers, in her town. But Divya was told that the safest place for a child was with her mother.
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