Katherine Birdwood says,

I will be the first to admit that I laughed when I read that Broadmoor was going to have its own hotel. Broadmoor and I have a long history; I went to school far far too close. Do you know that every Monday morning at 10 o’clock Broadmoor has an alarm that goes off? Thought not. Could I hear it at school? You bet. That sort of knowledge builds a bond with a place.

Broadmoor has, for several years, been subject to lack of funding- much like the majority of mental health facilities in this country. In fact it has been declared ‘unfit for purpose’ since 2003 according to the Commission for Healthcare Improvement. Therefore the step has been taken to have a hotel and a housing development commissioned as an answer to this problem and to create enough funding for ten new wards.

This may to some of you seem like an ideal solution. Financially it removes the drain on our already depleted government funds and provides what could consistently be a source of income for the hospital. Perfect right?

It gets better. Both the housing and the hotel will be behind the high security perimeter and shaded by trees. Therefore this development provides neither problem for patient or visitor.

But there’s still that niggle isn’t there? The one in the back of your mind. The one that says that this isn’t quite right. I have it too- because doesn’t this ring echoes of Bedlam, the Victorian mental asylum? Are we still of the opinion that we can simply hide our country’s problems in places like Broadmoor?

I find it tragic that in our supposedly cosmopolitan ‘PC’ environment we are regressing to viewing mental patients as a spectacle of ‘hysterical women and crazy madmen’ as described by clinical psychologist Professor Til Wykes, in order to create funding for them. Mental health cannot be viewed as an inconvenience as it is not done intentionally. Today, mental health is still a no go area with only 5% of medical research focussing on it, creating a huge liability for the future of our society. Society suddenly isn’t so big when people who need help, at last count 16.7 million in the UK alone, are falling through the cracks. Cracks which are costing us £77 billion a year.

Priorities and our values as a society need to be reassessed. However I fail to see how Broadmoor having its own hotel to create basic funding is going to be the solution.

Article by : Katherine Birdwood for Yorkvision Student Publication.

http://www.yorkvision.co.uk/comment/utterly-mental-building-broadmoor-hotel/

Self Help For Anxiety | Self Help For Depression