June 2008

This is a post about being happy.

Actually, it’s more a post about how you can become happy.

Well, really it’s a post about how Professor Layard (of the ‘bring on the 40,000 CBT psychologists‘ fame) knows we can all become happy.

Quite simply:

“Happiness is inversely related to income at higher levels of income because of the declining marginal utility of getting richer,”

See? Read the rest of this entry »

Monday 30th June is the date for Darzi’s final report on proposed NHS reforms; the eve of the NHS 60th anniversary.

My Gosh! The ann…… tii….. cciiiiiiiiiii ………………………….

……… pation!

Personally, I’m so excited I was awake hours ago while everyone was still sleeping … but then it’s GMT +9hours in Oz and I had a lie-in. Read the rest of this entry »

That’s the latest cry of the MoS:

That giant sucking sound you hear is the noise of money being vacuumed from the wages of productive workers into the pockets of dubious welfare claimants.

..writes a MoS journalist, who, by definition of his chosen career, is also a dubious claimant to being a productive member of society. It continues…

How can it be right for taxes to be used to subsidise alcoholics and drug abusers, in the guise of a questionable, inadequately monitored payment called ‘Disability Living Allowance’, which can be obtained without a doctor’s letter?

The same way a smoker can get access to a mobility allowance when they can’t walk more than 10 steps; or a fast food junkie can apply for home renovations because they can’t fit through the door anymore.

Why is this article picking on alcoholics and drug users?

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This is the sort of egocentric selfish inane inequity that gets on my tits.

A psychiatrist who released a mental patient who then stabbed a retired banker to death is suing for compensation.

Consultant Gill Mezey wants more than £300,000 from her employer for damage to her career.

Why did they suspend her?

Dr Mezey, 50, decided to let paranoid schizophrenic John Barrett out of hospital for an hour’s leave without even seeing him, in September 2004.

Barrett, then 43, immediately absconded, armed himself with kitchen knives and the following day attacked Denis Finnegan, 50, as he cycled through Richmond Park in South West London.

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So Z is sunning it up in Bognor; and I have no idea how to do this having not undertaken a double degree and  … as Doc C might put it… this is dumbing down of “This week in Mentalists”…. but somebody had to do it.

Apologies in advance for omissions, misquotes, forgetting your names, bad representations and wrongly attributing excerpts to someone who didn’t actually write it (a specialty of mine)…. Otherwise, please enjoy.

[All complaints in writing please to SWGAS@mentalnurse.org.uk.]

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Professor Tom Booker, head of drug research at Glasgow’s Clyde University and the man who conducted the latest lengthy study into the drug, said:

“Yeah, whatever.”

A spokesman for the University said:

“The Nazi’s were very bad people but even they could not make a middle class white boy adopt dreadlocks for a hairstyle, or make a highly intelligent middle aged man crawl around the floor of his laboratory in his underpants weeping with laughter about nothing at all, and then eat his own weight in marshmallows.”

Following the promotion of cannabis to the top spot in the evilness rankings the top ten most evil things in the world are:

1. (-) Cannabis
2. (2) Tobacco
3. (4) Debt consolidation ads featuring Carol Vorderman
= 5. (1) Richard and Judy
= 5. (3) The Nazis
6. (-) Heathrow Airport
7. (5) Prince Phillip
8. (7) Joseph Stalin
9. (-) Noel Edmonds
10. (10) The Devil and all his minions

(Previous position in brackets)

It’s official read all about it here.

Take a look at the following two articles both from the USA. The first is about three mentally ill people who were all involved in serious incidents after stopping their medication. David Tarloff a schizophrenic hacked to death a psychologist, Lee Coleman slashed two while on a rampage and Khiel Coppin a “disturbed” teenager confronted Police and was shot dead, The article suggests tracking mentally ill patients and ensuring their compliance with medication regimes by monitoring Medicaid payments.

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Tameside and Glossop PCT are looking for a “Health Improvement Co-ordinator” (£29,091 – £38,352) to take the strategic lead in the delivery of health improvement activity in the area. The successful candidate will be responsible for planning, organizing, managing, monitoring, evaluating and coordinating health improvement activities across the locality.

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Sorry guys, but there’ll be no This Week in Mentalists this coming Saturday. I’m going away for a few days break until next Monday, and I won’t have any internet access during that time. So don’t bother shouting for a round-up on Saturday, cos you’ll be talking to yourselves (Shrink, Serotonin, I do mean you two reprobates :p )

Until then, keep it real and keep it argumentative. See you lot next week.

PS. The Guardian has given us another plug. Wooooo!

What day is it? It’s This Week in Mentalists Day!
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Time Lord Dr Who was yesterday being slammed for endangering patients lives, dumbing down the health service and threatening the very fabric of space time by claiming to be a “Doctor”.
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Back in the 80s, there used to be a tunnel leading from one bit of King’s Cross to another bit of King’s Cross. I used to go through this tunnel on my way from the tube to a fabulous pub called The Bell, that is sadly no more. The remarkable thing about this tunnel was that it had an exhortation to smile plastered all over it, presumably to cheer up the commuters who, unlike me, were not off to get bladdered and listen to a chucklesome blend of 80s indie music and disco trash. It may still be there for all I know, I haven’t been back for years now.

Now, nothing irritates me more than being told to smile. I don’t like being told to smile by friends, and I certainly don’t like being dictated to by tunnels! However, for those of you working as nurses in the NHS, it may serve you well to remember that tunnel. In fact, perhaps you should have the word “smile” tattooed on your inner eyelids, just so you don’t forget. Why? Well, because the Dear Leader, Chairman Johnson has decided nurses should be rated on how smiley and nice they are.
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The first thing to remember about acute psychiatric wards is that they are very boring places to be (unless you are floridly psychotic of course then things can get a bit more interesting). The ward where my brother was confined, (and I use the word confined advisedly because for the first four days he was “asked” to remain on the ward or risk being discharged) was no different in this regard. There was nothing to do, no occupational therapy or therapy of any kind other than what came out of a pill bottle. He saw the consultant and the Registrar once in the first week and by the end of day three he was climbing the walls. The only exercise he was able to get was to walk from one end of the ward to the other. Other than that he could watch TV, listen to music or lie on his bed.
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As we’ve commented upon before, the BBC News website regularly use the same photo to illustrate mental health issues. Every time, it’s the same guy in the check shirt.

Today, Check Shirt Man is back again.

Mental Nurse would like to wish our best regards to Check Shirt Man, and express our hope that one day he may finally succeed in unglueing his hand from his forehead.

I saw a woman on Saturday, who was very depressed and had taken quite a large O/D. She also described a history of child hood sexual abuse. I spent a long time talking to her and gave her details of counselling organisations that I thought would be able to help her. She was reluctant to contact them but took the details anyway. I also promised to refer her to our local Enhanced primary care team, which I did. Today (Monday) there was a message from her on the answer phone asking me to call her on her mobile. Trouble was she had not left her mobile number on the message. In her message to me she sounded distressed but had not said that she was on top of the multi-storey car park about to jump off or had taken another O/D and was calling to say good bye, just could I call her.

So what to do?

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