So what if you're depressed as long as you're dressed?
Buddha Jane
On the BBC Ouch! message board in a thread called 'paying for visits', there's a discussion about whether older people who find it hard to get out and are lonely should pay for a volunteer to visit them once a week or whether such a service should be provided free of charge. As far as I can understand, the suggestion isn't that the visitors should be paid but that the money should go to paying for a volunteer co-ordinator.
Never mind whether people should be charged for this service or not, I have a much more important question. Why is it left to volunteers to provide this service?
Some of the older people who use such services will be deafblind and many younger people who are deafblind experience similar difficulties with getting out and with loneliness. This social isolation is damaging to mental health.
It's not as though we can think "it's ok, next week I'll see my friends/work colleagues," or "I'll take the dog out for a walk and chat to a friendly fellow-dog-walker," or "I'll pop to the shop, the checkout lady always has lots to say," or "I'll pick up the phone and give a friend a call." No, the isolation deafblind people experience is different.
Some of us are stuck in our homes for weeks on end without any possibility of going to see someone, giving someone a call or having a friend or relative visit us. Even if we do manage to go out, we cannot chat to people because they cannot communicate with us.
We can stand in the middle of a crowd but be oblivious to the presence of other people unless they touch us. For some of us, even our relatives, and people who used to be friends, cannot communicate with us. Humans evolved to be social animals and such social isolation is harmful to our mental health.
Poor mental health can have severe and devestating consequences on the lives of those of us affected by it. It also has a high cost to society. No, in case you think I'm talking about those rare cases where people with severe mental health problems commit violent crimes, I'm not. Such cases are extremely rare and people with mental health problems are much more likely to be the victims of crime than we are to be the perpetrators.
I'm talking about the cost to the taxpayer when people with mental health problems need hospitalisation or intensive support and treatment in the community.
Even the government recognises that social isolation is damaging to mental health. It's referred to in the white paper Healthy Lives Healthy People.
Yet, when it comes to the provision of services, reducing social isolation is seen as unimportant. When politicians, service providers, the media and the general public talk about social care, they speak as though personal care - that's things like washing, dressing and eating - is all that matters; services to enable deafblind people to break out of our social isolation are ignored.
If social contact is considered at all in the provision of services, it does tend to be a service provided by volunteers, as in the above example. Volunteers generally have little or no training and are often unable to communicate effectively with deafblind people, meaning that deafblind people are often excluded even from these voluntary schemes.
I'm not knocking volunteers; many do a fantastic job and provide invaluable services. But if as a society we are willing to pay people to provide personal care services that help to maintain physical health, we should also be prepared to pay people to provide services to overcome social isolation that maintain mental health.
It seems as though, despite the recognition that social isolation leads to poor mental health, nobody actually cares about that. It's as though it doesn't matter if you are depressed, psychotic, or even suicidal, as long as you are dressed.
Originally published on Deafblind Interact
Originally published in February 2011
Comments
Laura
12 August 2012 - 10:07am
Permalink
Brilliant comment 'Buddha Jane'.
Support to provide social contact has become a luxury. I think this is simply due to people's lack of understanding of deafblindness, and thankfully Sense are tackling the huge task of changing this.
I am a communicator guide, supporting a woman who is deafblind. I work a few hours a week supporting her with activities that are made incredibly difficult through deafblindness, which leaves little, if any time to support with social contact.
Social care seems to have forgotten about caring. I think that if everyone had a beter understanding of what life is like being deafblind, there would be no question as to how much support should be provided and social contact would no longer be a luxury.
Sasha
12 August 2012 - 10:07am
Permalink
Well said. Social contact is much too undervalued by the social care system and society as a whole. Put a hearing-sighted person in a situation where they experience total isolation, such as prisoners or hostages kept away from others, and there's worldwide condemnation and action to get that person released or at least given better conditions including social contact but so many deafblind people are denied the opportunity for even a few hours a week of social contact. It shouldn't be left to chance and the good will of volunteers to support us to have social contact. Support to get social contact should be seen as a priority by the social care system and society.
Stephen Thacker
12 August 2012 - 10:08am
Permalink
I am deafblind and also have physical disabilities. Unless people come to see me, the only way I can visit or meet them is to go out and everywhere I go I need to use expensive public transport which has to come out of disabilitn benefit. Despite having chess friends and family, who come to visit me occasionally, many of my friends are in different parts of the country and one lives in Finland and I rarely see her which is very sad as I love her very much, so I understand what it's like to sometimes be lonely and depressed - but why should we deafblind pay for people to come and talk to us even if it is only the person who co-ordinates the volunteers that we need we are being charged for? Yes it is sometimes difficult to communicate if we can't hear and then specialist people may be necessary, but it should also be borne in mind that most deafblind people are poor and rely on disability benefits which may soon be cut back so I don't think it's fair to inflict yet another paid service on the deafblind even if it's only a co-ordinator we have to pay for or yet another service we can no lomger receive!
Kim Weightman
12 August 2012 - 10:08am
Permalink
I have just become a volunteer in one of the Sense shops, after being ill for two years. I am not deafblind but have many other health issues. However, I used to work on a rehabilitation Unit as a Healthcare Assistant and I am sorry to say that the word CARE is not a word that some people know the meaning of or understand. The was not the case where I worked but I have been a patient and seen things form the other side and the healthcare profressionals now don't seem to have the time to CARE. I am pleased to say that I and many of my collegues always made time to sit and talk with the patients and actually care for them, as though they were my own family. I too know the feeling of depression as I have suffered and still do and it very hard some days when you don't feel lkie going out or you don't have anyone to talk to. Working at Sense is helping me through this, and I am all for volunteers paid or unpaid to visit people in their homes or go out walking with them just so that they have that communication with someone to stop them thinking they are forgotten/
Add new comment