Week 4 Journal: Mental Health

May 23

This week I’ve experienced a frequency illusion of Fassin’s "what we're looking at here is the worth of lives versus the value of life" (Fassin in Joiner, 2024). Economic and moral discrimination over who gets prioritization in healthcare, compounded by the disregard for mental healthcare inside such a hierarchy, is everywhere (Patel & Farmer, 2020).

The United Kingdom has a general election taking place in early July, and how the National Health Service gets funded is a long-time issue of enormous political contention. In a recent debate between the leaders of the major parties (23:46-25:36 in BBC Sounds, 2024), populist leader of the Reform Party, Nigel Farage, argued that current funding models for healthcare aren’t working. But as measures of success, he cited the returns on stroke, heart and cancer survival based on levels of investment of alternate economic models.

Going further, Farage has railed against those claiming disability benefits due to mental health issues, especially depression, demanding that they “pick themselves up, get back to work and be fulfilled” (Farage, 2024). His inflammatory rhetoric aligns mental health with economic burden, coupled with an already incendiary perspective about reducing immigration and a return to the perceived values of the past. Such argument is incredibly dangerous, but finds a receptive audience who already feel the strain of decades of underfunded healthcare programs.He aligns mental illness with the immoral vice of laziness, and positions it with an economic hierarchy where the leading causes of death for his voters (heart disease in the conservative elderly) are placed above the suffering of those who are his political opponents (depression in the liberal young). An extraordinarily abhorrent example of Kleinman’s failure of humanity (Kleinman, 2009).

References:
BBC Sounds (2024). Electioncast: The Big BBC Debate (In Full!). [Audio File]. Retrieved from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0j2yg5q.
Farage, N. (2024). Nigel Farage FUMES at people out of work for 'mental health issues' - "Get back to work!". GB News. YouTube.com. [Video File]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txti0p6fVXw.
Joiner, M. (2024). Week 4 Required Lecture. [Digital File]. Retrieved from: https://canvas.upenn.edu/courses/1781220/pages/week-4-required-lecture-47-00?module_item_id=29900561.
Kleinman, A. (2009). Global mental health: a failure of humanity. The Lancet. Vol. 374. August 22 2009. Retrieved from: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)61510-5/fulltext.
Patel, V. & Farmer, P. (2020). The moral case for global mental health delivery. The Lancet. Vol. 395. January 11 2020. Retrieved from: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)33149-6/abstract.