Preview

Human Rights for Individuals with Mental Health Disabilities

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
559 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Human Rights for Individuals with Mental Health Disabilities
Human Rights for Individuals with Mental Health Disabilities

Abstract
This article discussed key human rights points that are not essentially practiced throughout the world. Lawrence Gostin states that liberty, dignity, equality, and entitlement are those points which the World Health Organization are working on further for others to accept as human rights norms for individuals with mental health disabilities. The review will provide examples of the violation of human rights some persons with mental disabilities are exposed to. The group WHO put in place legal precedent and public pressure; created by this body of international law they have encouraged domestic governments to apply human rights principles to their policies affecting mentally disabled individuals at the national and sub-national level.

Human Rights for Individuals with Mental Health Disabilities
The overlooked and unspoken of disability of mental illness has been brought to the forefront with this article Lawrence Gostin has written. International Human Rights Law and Mental Disability provided great detail of how these individuals are seen, portrayed, and handled out in society. In our society mental illness is seen as instability and people continually turn their noses up in disgust when dealing with persons with such diagnosis. Many human rights are taken away from these people and can lead to some negative experiences. “The mentally disabled have ended up in prison, in equally deplorable adult homes, or on the streets, homeless and destitute,” says Gostin explaining the disregard for this demographic.
As he describes this neglect I relate it to the same mistreatment to the individuals that called Willowbrook State School in Staten Island, New York, home from the 1930’s until 1987. This facility’s was planned out for mentally disabled children, after ping-ponging ideas of its patient focused goal from U.S Army hospital to Veteran services, Willowbrook held to its original plan.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    This article was written by Laura Greenstein who is a communications coordinator at NAMI. NAMI, National Alliance on Mental Illness, is a mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for those affected by mental illness. They do this by educating, advocating, and listening to the mental illness community. In this article Greenstein explains that because of stigma people who experience mental illness are discriminated against due to the label they are given and they are usually seen as their condition. The people who suffer from mental illness are viewed as dangerous and incapable of doing things “normal” people can do. Greenstein expresses how challenging it can be to live with a mental illness and how by adding on the burden…

    • 158 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The elimination of state mental hospitals was not based on human need, but rather a political policy decision. The shortage of mental institutions creates a shift in the role of prison systems and presents several different issues for mentally ill inmates. The inmates are not medically treated in…

    • 252 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    We tend to hear a lot in the media that most violence comes from people with mental illness, but do we really know if this is the truth? As Anaya states in her essay “Mental Illness on Television” that “the media tend to always isolate or not mention people with a disability or show that they are not normal which is wrong” (54). This relates to Nancy Mairs essay “Disability” were she talks about physical disability and how the media doesn’t show it as a normal feature of life, but since she wrote it thirty years ago there has been progress in the media. On the other hand Anaya‘s main point is that the media should show mental illness as a feature of normal life as well not a threat which I strongly agree with.…

    • 537 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ashley Smith Inhumane

    • 962 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Over the years, mentally ill persons, especially the youths, have been the subject of harsh treatment by the society. Such is the case given they portrayal as criminals that need incarceration to rectify their behavior. A depiction of this kind does not reflect the sympathetic character that human beings must exhibit when dealing with the mentally ill. Mental illness is like any other type of medical conditions that requires equal and nonjudgmental treatment and care of sufferers of this fate. In illustration of how the society has failed on this account is a case study of Ashley Smith who undergoes painful experiences until her dying day. She is a young mentally ill Canadian woman whose experiences are unthinkable and inhumane given the obligation…

    • 962 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Willowbrook Reflections

    • 304 Words
    • 1 Page

    Families entrusted Willowbrook to do the right thing. Families were promised education, proper treatment, and essentially a better life for those who were intellectually disabled. The conditions and reality within Willowbrook were anything but that. The individuals were treated with cruelty, negligence and a lack of compassion. With the overwhelming amount of patients, government cuts were made, creating an even worse environment. Many patients became sick, conditions worsen and some even died.…

    • 304 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    This source begins by introducing the inequality and lack of funding in the mental health care system. The government acts as the source of the stigma in mental health, as certain laws prevent a parity of physical and and mental health. This tells the mentally ill that they are less deserving of a decent life than others. The article then continues to describe the struggle of finding mental health care in a discriminatory society. Often times, funding is so poor and services hard to come by that patients don’t get help until it’s too late. While the creators of these policies had the good intentions to reduce asylums…

    • 616 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    It is our ethical responsibility to make sure everyone in our country at least has the same opportunities as everyone else. How it is that America can claim to be an equal opportunity country, but yet there is still so many of these people wandering our streets and in homeless shelters? This is proof that these people are not able to take care of themselves and is in need of help from someone, this is where our mental institutions should come in play. Unfortunately, a lot of mental patients dread these places either because they do not believe they need help or because they do not want to have their personal rights taken away from them. Mental institutions must be able to provide patients with adequate living conditions that will further enhance their rehabilitation process. There are already a lot of rights that get taken away from a person when they are in a place they do not wish to be. The deinstitutionalization movement tried to help solve this problem by taking away institutionalization without consent by moving the mentally ill out of prolonged confinement into community mental health centers, which are voluntary. We also must think about how to finance these institutions without making the patient going in debt because of a disorder they were born with. More money will allow them to have more adequate staffing, which is also a must need in mental facilitations. This all helps keep our mental patients off of the streets wandering and helps give them adequate treatment…

    • 1319 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    This report will explain how legislation and social policy has changed in response to the needs of individuals with mental illness. It will analyse the impact of recent changes in social policy and how it has changed society’s response to mental health. Mental health has never fully been accepted in society. This report will outline how attitudes towards mental health have changed throughout history and explain why.…

    • 844 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    There is an agreement that about 2.8% of the US adult population suffers from severe mental illness. The most severely disabled have been forgotten not only by society, but by most mental health advocates, policy experts and care providers. Deinstitutionalization is the name given to the policy of moving severely mentally ill patients out of large state institutions and then closing the institutions as a whole or partially. Deinstitutionalization is a multifunctional process to be viewed in a parallel way with the existing unmet socioeconomical needs of the persons to be discharged in the community and the development of a system of care alternatives (Mechanic 1990, Madianos 2002). The goal of deinstitutionalization is that people who suffer day to day with mental illness could lead a more normal life than living day to day in an institution. The movement was designed to avoid inadequate hospitals, promote socialization, and to reduce the cost of treatment. Many problems developed from this policy. The discharged individuals from public psychiatric hospitals were not ensured the medication and rehabilitation services necessary for them to live independently within the community. Many of the mentally ill patients were left homeless in the streets. Some of the discharged patients displayed unpredictable and violent behaviors and lacked direction within the community. A multitude of mentally ill patients ended up incarcerated or sent to emergency rooms. This placed a huge burden on the jail systems.…

    • 2151 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    While it is important to understand the differences in today’s institution compared to their predecessors; it is also critical to take heed of lessons learned. Throughout history mankind has been challenged by how to treat members of society who are different whether these differences are based on physical or mental attributes. As for mental illness, we have entered into an age of new beginnings where the negative aspects of these places are being forgotten and images of safety and happiness for these patients are being…

    • 863 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Canadian courts have long had the power, in prescribed circumstances, to exempt an individual from criminal responsibility for actions performed while incapacitated by a mental disorder. The power (mentioned above) is inherent within “the basic principle of Canadian criminal law that to be convicted of a crime, the state must prove not only a wrongful act, but also a guilty mind” (Department of Justice, 4). Consequently, Canada’s Criminal Code has subsequently determined that citizens will not be held criminally liable for their actions if their mental state at the time rendered them “incapable of appreciating” the nature and quality of the act and knowing that it was wrong. In such instances, however, it may be necessary for the state to exercise some level of control over those mentally disordered individuals who are believed to pose a threat to others. Thus, Parliament is faced with the challenge of achieving a balance between individual rights and public safety. This paper will review a number of outstanding issues relating to the criminal justice system’s treatment of mentally disordered persons : whether they should be held responsible for their actions or not.…

    • 1372 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Until the 1970s, public psychiatric hospitals were responsible for treating and housing mentally ill citizens. However, as a response to the deinstitutionalization movement – this is, a national campaign that urged the federal government to shut down mental health facilities and thus “deinstitutionalize” the mentally ill – prisons and jails became the new de facto mental health asylums. In 2015, according to the Treatment Advocacy Center, in 44 of the 50 states, “the largest prison or jail held more people with serious mental illness than the largest psychiatrist hospital.” Therefore, in a country where incarcerating people with mental challenges seems to be a more viable option than treatment, it is inevitable to question the policies and…

    • 1799 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the ways people strive for the American Dream is through the pursuit of happiness. Though many people search for happiness in America, they are not always able to find it. In America today people with mental illnesses are among those who struggle to find happiness. In Whitley and Henwood ‘s "Life, Liberty, And The Pursuit Of Happiness: Reframing Inequities Experienced By People With Severe Mental Illness" article, they discuss how difficult it can…

    • 872 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mental Health Funding

    • 4122 Words
    • 17 Pages

    So not only does the effected family have to be exposed by stigma and discrimination but they have to suffer with having a loved one being affected by a mental disorder that takes over their life (World Health Organization, 2003).…

    • 4122 Words
    • 17 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Fellner, J. (2007). A Corrections Quandry: Mental Illness and Prison Rules. Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review , 41.…

    • 3184 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays