Health in East London - Essay Example

HEALTH IN EAST LONDON  By         Health in East London Introduction Mind is a mental health care organization in Newham East London that offers health care services to the public, an institution provides support, and advices people experiencing mental health problems. Mental health has become a major problem since at least one in four people experience a mental health problem at some point in their lives. It could be mild in state or deeply rooted as for the case of schizophrenia. Some people may suffer it for a short time while others may suffer for a long time with the same problem. Short-term mental illnesses include depression that people suffer at some point in life based on how they live and handle life. The NHS is working hand in hand with the local authority to ensure that people with mental health problems get housing even after discharge from mental health organizations. It shows how gross the problem has become in this location (Local Government Association, 2013, p.8). Mind dedicates its efforts to dealing with this health challenge. Its local support comprises of over two hundred and fifty thousand people with supported housing, helping in crisis, employment, counseling and training facilities. This company has worked for more than sixty years supporting its community members and those beyond with mental health challenges. These communities are the East London area, containing the North East London and the South East London. The North East is home to seven communities, and bound in the south by Dundas Street, and in the east by Richmond Street (Fishman, 1979). It is also home to the London International airport. The South East is home to eleven communities and houses the Westminster ponds and the Western Ontario Fish and Game Protective association. The Mind mental health organization is in the Newham area of East London. The Newham area comprises of a merging of the former Essex County with the county of West ham (Trust for London & New Policy Institute, 2013-2014). It has a rich history that made it located as a gateway to London. In 1850s, the building of the Royal Docks for the new steamships brought about its rapid changes. They become a very busy dock since they had a link to the railway, and were the largest in the world. It made Newham become an important manufacturing center in southern England, as well as, very busy city that people regularly visited, especially for business. Jobs cropped up. Many races of people flocked in to do business all the way from India, Africa, China and even Jews. It brought about cultural diversity and other challenges associated with migration and huge communities. It also associated with prostitution as a way of life for the populations. This area sets for rapid growth that the Second World War affected leading to lose of many jobs, damaged property and even had many families move away and resettle elsewhere (Trust for London & New Policy Institute, 2013-2014). The population within this region contained diverse cultural practices owing to their different origins, such as the Africans and the Asians. These people immigrated into the region in search of greener pastures and a good life, and this led to the mix of different cultures found in the region. The social make up of the region has to be accommodative of the different persons residing in the area in order to ensure harmonious coexistence. This region has had various cases of serious mental problems affecting the residents, which is one factor that necessitated the Mind Corporation to focus its attention Some families ought to join the war in the 1950s and after it was all over, new developments begun again and the area was soon back to the development. The steep deep in its population was recovered to more that 300,000 as of late. Demographically, it has one of the youngest age structure and the mostly populated in England. It explains why they consider it to have the highest rate of unemployment in England. Other challenges it faces are lots of ill health that accompanies premature deaths that have affected its people (Trust for London & New Policy Institute, 2013-2014). It entirely explains why the researcher decided to focus on this part of London. Therefore, this makes the project useful in the fight against the challenges facing Newham. Study Method For this research to succeed, qualitative and quantitative techniques come into play. The difference between the two lies much more on what they entail that is if they are different in reality, and whether the factors considered are measurable or not (Isadore & Carolyn, 1998, p.2). The qualitative approaches assisted me in making various comparison aspects of the research, and as such, made reasonable conclusions based on the data collected. The researcher collected primary data for this work. This involved mainly researching online, using qualitative and quantitative data collection. It also involved making telephone calls to the business, primary research with friends and family who have lived or worked in this borough for many years, and observing the day-to-day activities at the Mind business for a specified period through online media helped. The researcher was in a place to learn the activities of the respondents at the organization’s website while making notes on what interests him, and is useful to the study. From it, the researcher was in a place to draw a conclusion from the data collected primarily. The interactive staff of the Mind organization was of vast help in providing information while its community workers and volunteers helped too. Some of the data was directly from some of the patients attaining treatment. Attendance to some of the research sessions provided a firsthand experience of what always happens at this facility. Attendance of some of the training programs too was a highlight in the research. The first available resource was the website of the organization that provides information on its activities in the community. It helped in creating interactions with people that have had firsthand experience with the business world. The website details the objectives of the business, as well as, the main objectives it aims at certifying. Having operated for more than sixty years makes it easy to access a person who has attained help form the facility before and all these comes handy as resources for the research carried out. Therefore, it provided a platform for the research and made it successful to the level of completion. Telephone attempts to the facility too were helpful and the interactions with family members of people who have attended care there. The Mind group offered mental health services to the people of Newham for more than sixty years. It has embraced a community approach in handling the mental illness challenge facing the people of Newham. It has gone further to partner with the local authority and the local community in establishing homes for the people that have mental challenges and cannot obtain accommodation in the facility or after discharge. It has used a voluntary approach and embraced the training of the community members to help and on how to cope with mental challenges and the people suffering from it. Its prolonged service to the people has made it possible for donations and the operations to ease in possibility. This approach seems to be escalating the challenge rather than eliminating it. In the regeneration of East London, the enthusiasm and pride of the people focus on and it directs their efforts in fighting mental health issues Butler & Rustin, 1996). Review This borough contains a large group of people with many different origins compared to many other boroughs. These people have a diverse range of cultures, mainly from Africa and Asia. It creates difficulties of language, minimal knowledge of the business, and the fact that it offers free services, having to work long hours on the minimum wage or study to be able to survive in this borough, i.e., accommodation, food, transport, social life. These factors can all cause difficulties when making these people aware of this company. However, volunteers from similar backgrounds help spread the word and encourage more volunteers to join, who can also help with translating and introducing the company to friends and family who can be from similar backgrounds, religions or who just speak the same languages. The Newham borough has a huge, as well as, a diverse population as opposed to other boroughs across London. The numerous different cultures mainly arise from the Asian and African communities that resided here. The diversities in culture denied them an opportunity to realize the negative effects of mental health in good time. As such, the introduction of the Mind organization within its midst enlightened them to realize the big problems facing their lives, especially those related to mental health, and designed various approaches to assist. Some of the difficulties that these residents encountered while dealing with the organization was language barriers, minimal knowledge of the organization, as well as, the fact that it offered its services freely. Furthermore, the employees at the organization had to work for long hours on a minimum wage, or study in order to survive in the borough, such as to be able to source necessities such as food, shelter, transport, and social life. These factors can all cause difficulty when making these people aware of this organization available to them. However, volunteers from similar backgrounds help spread the world and encourage more volunteers to join which can also help with translating and introducing the organization to friends and family who can be from similar backgrounds, religions or whom just speak the same languages. As a result can analyze how helpful the organization and website is from individuals from different cultures and ethnicities. The family approach to solving mental health problems looks more applicable than institutional approach. The family care for an individual in a natural set up. People do not seem to support this creation of supportive networks to an individual’s mental issues. It is because individuals have to open up the content of what could be causing it, especially if it relates to aspects of depression and anxiety. These aspects of privacy, and more, raise a lot of questionable issues when developing policies relating to the social and community care. Very few people have people they feel free to share issues affecting their lives. Furthermore, these people must be their most trusted confidants. These people are pivotal to our lives and we trust them enough to go for advice from them. Most of these are family members and they give more confidence to share than sharing with a person from a mental institution that one may have fear of having his problems dealt with by a wide range of individuals (Miriam, Jim, Judith & Phillips, 2002). A major challenge in developing this care besides the above listed was in the integration of the nurses, the sociologists, the psychologists and the police and welfare associations. It was difficult due to the different methods of training that they all obtain and yet they all participate in the provision of community mental health care (Michael & Ben, 2005). The quality of mental health care to the community is for a wide range of reasons. These would be for control of mental illnesses, prevention of destruction of life and property that comes with certain mental illnesses and the ease in identifying individuals with mental challenges to facilitate ease in the distribution of government aid to this group. To the people of East London, the development of the housing units for these people came possible by the availability of information on the number and the status of those with mental illnesses in that particular region. The community mental health care has led to the development of criticisms in the mental health management aspects. It has occurred majorly due to the less development and the ineffectiveness of the system in controlling the mentally ill individuals and their supervision. The use of mental health care nurses is encourageable due to their ability to assess the mental challenge (Sheila, 2001, p.13). The non-mandatory nature of community health nursing also raises a question on the management of the mentally ill. The evolution of these services has seen the development of both the inpatient and outpatient services that aim at improving the quality of service and the continuous assessment of the patient to full recovery (Howard, Jeffrey & Kenneth, 2009). Community health nursing has an importance of helping in stress reduction, in an individual. In this practice, stress reduction, relaxation and exercises are encouraged as ingredients to living a healthy life (Lionel, 2009, p.212).The daily activities that individuals undertake bring about stress, which may also arise from the daily associations with the people we value most in our lives. This stress if not addressed can become a health challenge that can affect an individual’s productivity in their lines of operation. Research proves that, as one ages, their abilities to handle and accommodate stress keep diminishing. Therefore, the incorporation of regular exercises in ones routine and the provision of relaxation time in one’s job schedule give the control over their stress levels. The local community gets involved in the community mental health management in a number of ways. The community donates money, food and their time to handling and caring for those with mental challenges, the development of facilities like gyms that are useful in exercising and the provision of business to each other so that stress does not build up in an individual. The lives and traditions of people are what to go by if we are to consider features that are helpful in community mental health management (Cox, 1994). The life and traditions of the people of East London are in line with the management of mental challenges like a community and, therefore, explaining their support and coordination in working with the Mind mental health hospital. In addition to their ways, their cultures also support mental health management (Helman, 2000). It has managed to mobilize the community to believe mental health is a condition manageable and, therefore, embracing its approach to managing it. The society, therefore, grows under the bracket of community mental health management, therefore, influencing the society’s decisions and the way of life (Moon & Gillespie, 1995). In their day-to-day operations, the Mind mental health institution has to deal with a number of factors attributable to the people they manage. These include the noise that the patients make the destruction to property and even the difficulty in handling such individuals is immense. The disadvantages with the website of Minds mental health hospital is that it is in native English that may not necessarily be understood by everyone especially immigrants from different countries. The stories in their websites may also not attract many readers and, therefore, limiting the number of donations, they can manage to rise on the website. The web design not well developed if its objectives include working as a marketing tool for its products and the mobilization of resources through donors. Health inequalities continue increasing as the country continues improving. This interest is more in all developed countries and the developing ones (Graham, 2000). The chances that people live a long and healthy life are so unequal and unpredictable aspects of life. The differences exist between men and women, children and the elderly, different ethnic foundations and even different regions and social spheres. It has become a world concern with even organizations like the World Health Organization raising concern (Bartley M, Blane D & Davey Smith D, 1998). The contributions of social sciences, economics, psychology and social policy to the fight on improving the health standards of our society are of vast importance to us. They have helped us understand more on the heath differences that surround us in our communities. The migration of different people from different places to settle in East London could associate its mental health challenge to the level. Migration of people inclusive of refugees has an effect on the mental health of the people (Dinesh, & Shusham, 2010). The refugees and asylum seekers have different mental needs that need to be addressed (Dinesh, Tom & Kamaldeep, 2010). The migrations of the African and Asian communities could reflect the result of migration to the Newham community. The strength and weaknesses of the approach of the Mind mental health institution include the ability to provide a home for the mentally challenged and, therefore, helping control and ease distribution of resources. The weakness has been the encouragement of seeking of medical attention at the slightest level of mental disturbance and the picture that it has posted on the community. The availability of volunteers made it possible for the organization’s impact to be felt widely in the region, the presence of different cultural aspects and religious too have been advantageous in helping educate the community. 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