Postpartum psychosis: ‘I’m a thing possessed, an animal. I am nearly sectioned twice’

My name is Jessica. I have postpartum psychosis. It is not my fault. Since my son was born, I have slept nine hours in 11 days. I have heard of the baby blues, but this is something else altogether; this feels like the baby black and blues. This feels like oblivion.

I can’t stop writing. Every thought, every idea, the name of every person I meet needs to be recorded. I mustn’t lose this thought. It must be noted; kept; remembered. The world needs to hear my words. If they are lost, all will be lost. Record it. Record what I’m saying. Make sure it’s recording. This will go viral. It will make me a millionaire. You will never have to work another day in your life.

When I arrive at the psychiatric mother and baby unit in Hackney, I am a shell of my former self. Psychosis is bringing me to my knees. I gave birth 11 days ago, and since that day the devil has singled me out as his dancing partner and has not let me rest. I have not slept, I can’t eat without distraction, and the pressure of my speech is so intense that my throat is red raw. I have transformed. I am a small, fragile bird-like creature and my husband can do nothing but stand beside the me that used to be his wife. The me he still hopes is in there somewhere.

On the journey to the ward, I have nearly been sectioned twice. I’m on borrowed time. The police may need to be called. If my baby is taken from me, I don’t want to imagine what I might do. I am frightened to live inside myself. I am ill. I am a thing possessed, an animal, caged. Whenever I have a moment of relative lucidity, I cry out to anyone who will listen – “I am here, it’s me. I fully cooperate with you. I need help. I will take any medication you need me to. I am here of my own free will. I surrender.”

But, within seconds, the Thing takes hold again and drags me back out to sea. I lash out. I will not take those pills. Get them away from me. You are taking away my human rights. I want a lawyer. You cannot degrade me like this and get away with it.

The only thing holding me hostage was the psychosis within. This thing wanted to destroy me.

People always ask me if I knew what was happening when I had postpartum psychosis. The truth is that I was painfully aware of what was happening. Until I started taking medication, and felt numbed, completely zombified, and lost two weeks of my life, I felt everything, and was utterly powerless to stop it or stem the irrepressible torment of my illness.

The tremors of the psychotic quake still resonate throughout our lives three years later. It took me about three months in the mother and baby unit to recover enough to be granted leave to go home. My baby was no longer newborn and our house had adopted the chill that homes left standing vacant absorb.

I was determined in my recovery to speak out against the thing that had kept me captive and had sought to break me. This was when my blog was born, and it came screaming into the world, determined to name the horror and the beauty of illness and recovery; the war and peace of our experience. I refused to be silent. I would not be ashamed. The blog, Mutha Courage, was my attempt to piece together the impossible jigsaw of my fragmented reality, and work out what the hell had happened and how we could live again.

I am very proud to now be in a position to talk about what happened to me and to my family, in an attempt to open the conversation and to normalise our relationship to these traumatic illnesses and episodes. The horror of what we went through cannot be denied, but I also want to share the tremendous love, growth and power that such a journey can engender.

I always say that I won the psychosis lottery, because I got lucky even in the most unlucky of circumstances. I was lucky to have such incredible NHS staff to offer me love and compassion even in this darkest chapter of my existence. I was lucky to have a husband who could speak to my soul when my mind was not intact. I was lucky to have a baby who was so patient and calm even in the most turbulent of beginnings. I was lucky to have this illness and be able to speak out about how these experiences can ultimately lead to greater understanding of ourselves and those closest to our hearts. We cannot choose what happens to us. All we can choose is how we play the hand we have been dealt. I am not the only sufferer. I am not the only survivor. We are all warriors in our own battles.

During some of my most intense psychotic episodes I was obsessed with recording what I was saying, because I was convinced that the content was essential for the world to hear. Once I listened back to the recordings, I realised that I did want the world to hear them, but for a different reason. I wanted to share them, and our story, to give insight into the debilitating nature of mental illness, something that many people and their families suffer from, and to shine a light on a subject that has, for too long, been kept in the shadows.

Mama Courage will be on BBC Radio 4 on Friday 12 May at 2.15pm.

Postpartum psychosis: ‘I’m a thing possessed, an animal. I am nearly sectioned twice’

South African scandal after nearly 100 mental health patients die

At least 94 patients with mental health issues died after South African authorities moved themfrom hospitals to unlicensed health facilities that were likened to concentration camps, a government investigation has revealed.

Many of the deaths were due to pneumonia, dehydration and diarrhoea as the patients were hurriedly moved to 27 “poorly prepared” facilities in an apparent cost-cutting measure that showed evidence of neglect.

The health ombudsman report, which has sparked uproar, detailed how some patients were collected from the Life Esidimeni hospital in Gauteng province last year using open pickup trucks.

As the scandal broke, the provincial health minister, Qedani Mahlangu, resigned over the findings, which directly implicated her in the move.

According to the report, which was reportedly compiled after 80 hours of listening to family members and inspectors during the investigation – relatives were left in the dark over where the patients were, in unheated centres that some witnesses said were like concentration camps.

The centres also failed to provide seriously ill patients with enough food and water, leaving them severely malnourished, underweight and in some cases dying from dehydration.

Gauteng’s provincial health department had terminated its longstanding contract with the Life Esidimeni hospital and moved more than 1,300 patients to an “unstructured, unpredictable, substandard caring environment”, the report said.

“One person has died from a mental health-related illness. None of the 93 [others] have died from a mental illness,” the health ombudsman, Malegapuru Makgoba, told local media as the report was released.

“The Gauteng health department took patients from a licensed institution and handed them over to unlicensed facilities.”

Makgoba said the death toll was likely to rise as investigations continued into the scandal.

The report pointed towards the neglect that led to the deaths being caused by profit-seeking. The 27 healthcare centres “were mysteriously and poorly selected” and were “unable to distinguish between the highly specialised non-stop professional care requirements … and a business opportunity”, it said.

Gauteng’s premier David Makhura vowed to hold accountable all the responsible officials.

The opposition Democratic Alliance party expressed outrage over the findings, and accused the government of lying about the death toll when reports of the tragedy began to emerge.

“Criminal charges should also be laid against all implicated parties,” said the party’s provincial shadow health minister.

South African scandal after nearly 100 mental health patients die

Nurse shifts left unfilled at nearly every hospital in England, figures show

Almost every hospital in England has fewer nurses on duty than each believes are needed to guarantee safe patient care, research shows.

Analysis of official data by the Health Service Journal (HSJ) found that 96% of NHS hospital trusts in England had fewer nurses covering day shifts in October than they had planned and 85% did not have the desired number working at night.

The disclosure of such widespread failure to ensure hospitals are properly staffed has prompted fresh concern that a chronic lack of nurses and the NHS’s dire finances are putting patient safety at risk.

Nurse shortages have led to patients having to wait for medication, going unwashed or not having observations done on time, the HSJ said.

Janet Davies, the chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, said: “This is yet more evidence that there are too few nurses caring for patients, putting people at serious risk. Safe staffing levels aren’t an optional extra. Having the right number of nurses is essential to ensure that patients can recover properly.”

The college estimates there are as many as 24,000 vacancies for nurses across the UK.

Nurses told the HSJ that understaffing meant hospitals were already providing substandard care, leading to patient safety “near misses”.

The figures are the worst hospitals have recorded since they were obliged to start publishing details of staffing levels in 2013, in the wake of a report on the Mid Staffordshire care scandal.

The number of trusts that do not have planned numbers of staff at work has gone up despite the recruitment of record numbers of nurses by acute hospitals. Limits introduced in 2015 on the amount hospitals can pay to hire agency nurses may help explain why staffing levels are dropping in many places.

One nurse said: “Sometimes observations get missed and I can recall many times where the patient is found to be deteriorating when they are eventually done. This gives you immense stress as you are left with the realisation you did not pick up on your patient’s condition early enough to prevent an acute episode.”

Another said: “I have seen patients not have proper care, dressings not changed, [and] not given the choice of shower or a wash as it takes more time that we do not have.”

HSJ reached its conclusions by examining data on nurse staffing levels that trusts release through the NHS Choices website. These include the numbers present in general medical wards, maternity units, surgical wards and intensive care units at 214 acute hospitals.

In hospitals in England, a nurse is meant to look after no more than eight medical patients, and the ratio can be as low as one to one in neonatal and intensive care units.

The figures show that Dewsbury and district hospital in West Yorkshire had 75% of the number of nurses it had planned to have on duty last October, down from the 87% it managed in the first three months of 2015.

Princess Alexandra hospital in Harlow, Essex, which went into special measures that month, covered 77% of shifts, as did Pontefract general infirmary in West Yorkshire.

The HSJ found that some trusts were employing unusually high numbers of healthcare assistants. That may suggest they are replacing nurses with cheaper personnel who have little clinical training.

Prof Peter Griffiths, of Southampton University, a member of NHS Improvement’s safe staffing committee for acute wards, said: “This is clearly not a good place for the NHS to be and it isn’t getting any better.” He said healthcare assistants could help plug gaps but relying on them to deputise for nurses in the long term risked compromising patient safety and involved “the risk of a false reassurance”.

The shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, said: “Tired, overworked nurses cannot be expected to continue providing the quality of care which patients need. The government needs to do much more to make sure nursing remains an attractive profession and to ensure hospitals can get in place the number of nurses they need to keep patients safe.”

A Department of Health spokesman said: “We expect all parts of the NHS to make sure they have the right staff in the right place at the right time to provide safe care. That’s why there are already almost 26,000 extra clinical staff, including almost 11,400 additional doctors and over 11,200 additional nurses on our wards since May 2010.”

Nurse shifts left unfilled at nearly every hospital in England, figures show

Avocado emergency nearly cost my finger | Letters

I love Claire Ptak’s recipes, but the photograph showing her removing the stone from an avocado – holding the fruit in the palm of her left hand while tapping the stone with the knife held in her right – for her chocolate avocado mousse, made me blanch (Let there be light, Cook, 7 January).

I used this method once after seeing it illustrated in a magazine. The knife went straight through the avocado and nearly cut my finger off, resulting in 11 stitches and plastic surgery on the nerve.

The surgeon told me that there were three types of knife/finger accidents: the oyster-opening one, the avocado one, and the separating-two-frozen-burgers one. A paradigm of the British class system perhaps?
Vivien Bailey
St Albans, Hertfordshire

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Avocado emergency nearly cost my finger | Letters

Laugh? I nearly died: how an aneurysm led Scott Gibson to standup

Eight years ago, while returning home from a stag do in Blackpool, Scott Gibson began getting headaches that were so excruciating he rang the NHS’s 24-hour helpline and then had a stroke while on the phone. They sent an ambulance, but he turned it away and simply took to his bed instead – for four days. As he lay there, one thought kept going through his head: “I must be OK because I’m young and healthy.” Finally, he tried to head back to work, only to find himself going blind in one eye. Somehow he made it to hospital, where doctors diagnosed an aneurysm an inch-and-a-half deep behind his right ear. He needed major brain surgery, they said. The operation took seven hours.

After Gibson pulled through, he was determined to live life to the full – to live the life he’d always dreamed of, in fact. “I always wanted to be a storyteller,” says Gibson. “And, from day one, I knew this would be the first story I’d tell.” So, as a lifelong comedy lover, the Glaswegian embarked on a college standup course and was soon gigging regularly. In 2012, he took redundancy – £632 – from the call centre where he worked to focus fully on his new career.

But it wasn’t until last year that he made his Edinburgh fringe debut – after a false start in 2015, when the Stand Comedy Club, which has venues in Newcastle, Glasgow and Edinburgh, refused to book Life After Death, as he called his show. “I don’t know why,” says Gibson, now 32. “I don’t know if they thought I was worthy of a room.”

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A clip from Scott Gibson’s show Life After Death on YouTube

At no point did I think: ‘I’m going to win an award with my debut show’

In Edinburgh, however, he proved an overnight sensation. The unheralded Glaswegian swiped the coveted best newcomer comedy award with a show you’d happily watch even if there were no laughs in it, so gripping is his near-death tale. Looking back, Gibson says he is glad about the enforced wait: the extra year’s work contributed, he believes, to his extraordinary success. I could fill this whole article with quotes expressing the burly Scotsman’s astonishment at winning his gong, joining a pantheon that includes Sarah Millican, the Mighty Boosh and Tim Minchin. “I never thought in a million years I’d even be nominated,” he says, having arrived at the festival with “no manager, no PR, no buzz. Didn’t even have a press release. I don’t know if that helped, having no expectations. But at no point did I think, ‘I’m going to win an award with my debut show.’”

Even being shortlisted, says Gibson, propelled him into a glamorous new world. “The nominees turned up to have press pictures taken – and there’s free coffee and bacon rolls! I’m thinking, ‘This is how the other half live!’” Of 18 acts nominated, Gibson believes he was the only one without an agent or manager. He credits his venue, the Gilded Balloon, with providing the support that made his triumph possible.

What made it doubly sweet, he says, was that the main award was won by his compatriot Richard Gadd, a first ever Scottish double-whammy and a rare instance of Edinburgh’s comedy awards recognising local talent. “Rightly or wrongly,” says Gibson, “we [Scottish comics] have an idea we don’t belong at the fringe. There is a voice in our heads saying we cannot compete with London, or the establishment.”

That’s partly because, for Scottish acts, the fringe is awkwardly positioned between home gig and alien environment. “It’s a home gig in that it’s in Edinburgh,” says Gibson, “but not in terms of the audience.” Then there’s the lack of a sustainable comedy circuit in Scotland, meaning acts can only ever do short sets in pubs, and seldom the hour-long narrative or themed shows that prosper on the fringe.

“It’s a hard apprenticeship,” says Gibson. “But it’s the best, because if you come through it, you can play anywhere.” So will his triumph be a confidence-booster for Scottish acts? “There’ll have been comics in Scotland who heard the result and went, ‘Brilliant! Next year, I’m going.’ And others who’ll say, ‘Well, that’s us for another 25 years.’ That’s unfortunately how we think, and it’s stupid.”

At any rate, Gibson will be back, with a show called Like Father Like Son, about “the male figures in my life and how those relationships formed me”. Already nearing completion, it will be one in the eye, Gibson promises, for anyone thinking: “All right, one-trick pony, let’s see what you’ve got.”

In the meantime, he is midway through a run at Soho theatre in London. Before his fringe success, getting a gig there was all he dreamed of, the apex of his ambition. However, his aspirations have not been much affected by awards glory. “I just love doing standup,” he says. “If you can pay your bills, go on holiday once a year, and do standup … ” The ex-call centre employee’s voice tails off. “I don’t know what else you’re wanting. It’s just a good life. Life’s good, man.”

•Scott Gibson: Life After Death is at Soho theatre, London, until 14 January.

Laugh? I nearly died: how an aneurysm led Scott Gibson to standup

Bicycle helmets reduce risk of serious head injury by nearly 70%, study finds

A major study of bike helmet use around the world from more than 64,000 cyclists has found helmets reduce the risks of a serious head injury by nearly 70%.

The study also found neck injuries are not associated with helmet use and cyclists who wear helmets reduce their chance of a fatal head injury by 65%.

The compulsory wearing of bike helmets in Australia has long been a source of frustration for some cyclists, who argue it reduces participation rates. Previous studies have indicated helmet use encourages risk-taking behaviour or does not reduce serious injury to the brain.

But a comprehensive review by Australian statisticians Jake Olivier and Prudence Creighton from the University of New South Wales that drew together data from more than 40 separate studies found helmet use was associated with dramatically reduced odds of head injuries.

The findings were presented in Finland this week at Safety 2016, the world conference on injury prevention and safety promotion.

Olivier’s findings were particularly significant for serious or fatal head injuries and found the reduction was greater for these kinds of more serious injuries.

“Helmet use is associated with odds reductions of 51% for head injury, 69% for serious head injury, 33% for face injury and 65% for fatal head injury. Injuries to the neck were rare and not associated with helmet use,” the study found.

“These results suggest that strategies to increase the uptake of bicycle helmets should be considered along with other injury prevention strategies as part of a comprehensive cycling safety plan.”

The researchers cautioned that helmets were not a “panacea for cycling injury” and did not eliminate head or face injuries or offer protection to other parts of cyclists’ bodies. But it does make the case more difficult for those who oppose mandatory helmet wearing, they said.

“The legislation of mandatory helmets for cyclists is a controversial topic and past research on its effectiveness has been somewhat mixed,” the study said. “Irrespective of past research, the results of this review do not support arguments against helmet legislation from an injury prevention perspective.”

However, critics claim that helmet laws put people off cycling, causing far wider weight-related health problems due to Australians favouring driving, or not moving at all. One study found that 16.5% of people say they would ride more often if they were not required to wear a helmet at all times.

Chris Rissel, a professor of public health at the University of Sydney, told a 2015 Australian Senate inquiry into the subject that cycling numbers dropped after the helmet laws were introduced in the 1990s, which made remaining cyclists more vulnerable.

“In safety terms there is a phenomenon called safety in numbers,” he said. “As more people cycle, our roads become safer for these cyclists.

“Drivers become used to seeing cyclists and adjust their behaviour, and infrastructure tends to be improved to better cater for cycling. Even if cyclists wear helmets they are less safe with fewer cyclists on the road than they would be with more cyclists about.

“Helmets are a barrier to new riders, particularly for occasional and non-regular riders. The need to wear a helmet reinforces the message that cycling is dangerous – with perceptions of danger a major reason people give for not cycling.”

The NSW government has recently reviewed cycling laws and introduced harsh new penalties for a range of offences. The fine for not wearing a helmet has risen from $ 71 to $ 319.

Bicycle helmets reduce risk of serious head injury by nearly 70%, study finds

Combined HRT could increase breast cancer risk by nearly 300%

Women who rely on the most commonly used form of hormone replacement therapy are roughly three times more likely to develop breast cancer than those who do not use it, according to a study whose results suggest the risk of illness has been previously understated.

Those using the combined HRT therapy, a combination of oestrogen and progestogen, were running a risk 2.7 times greater than non-users, according to a study by scientists at the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) in London.

Previous investigations may have underestimated the increased risk by up to 60%, the study added.

Anthony Swerdlow, professor of epidemiology at the ICR, said: “What we found is that the risks with combined HRT are larger than most of the literature would suggest.”

The study’s leaders added that HRT is an individual choice but one for which accurate information is essential.

An estimated one in 10 women in their 50s use HRT to deal with menopausal symptoms including hot flushes, night sweats, insomnia, mood swings and tiredness.

The treatment is effective but controversial because studies published in 2002 and 2003 have previously suggested there is also link with breast cancer. Those findings led to a halving of the numbers of women taking the drugs.

In November an NHS watchdog, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), sought to reassure women about the safety of the treatment, which replaces depleted oestrogen and – in combined HRT – progestogen to alleviate symptoms.

Most women take combined HRT because oestrogen alone can increase the risk of womb cancer and taking progestogen alongside oestrogen is known to help minimise this risk. HRT using oestrogen alone is usually recommended for women who have had a hysterectomy.

Breast Cancer Now’s chief executive, Lady Delyth Morgan, said:
“Menopause symptoms can be hellish. The really important thing about the generations study is that it’s actually a fine-tuned study that’s looking very specifically and carefully at the issue.

“It’s potentially the most accurate assessment that can be made because it’s looking at the menopausal status of the participants and it’s looking at the length of time HRT was taken and on that basis assesses the change in the risk.”

There were almost 900,000 prescriptions for combined HRT with progestogen last year, according to the NHS. The risk of breast cancer increased with duration of use, with women who had used combined HRT for more than 15 years being 3.3 times more likely to develop breast cancer than non-users.

However in women using the other type of HRT – a variant that uses oestrogen only – the scientists found that there was no overall increase in breast cancer risk compared with women who had never used HRT.

Scientists have debated the increased risk of breast cancer from HRT, which could be explained by an increased exposure to hormones affecting the development and growth of some tumours.

For the study, published in the British Journal of Cancer on Tuesday, 39,000 women were monitored for six years. During that time 775 – or nearly 2% – developed breast cancer and women using combined HRT (for an average, median duration of 5.4 years) were 2.7 times more likely to contract the disease during the treatment period than women who had never used HRT.

However, no increase in risk was seen in women using oestrogen-only HRT and a year or two after women stopped taking combined HRT, there was not a significantly increased risk of breast cancer, confirming findings of previous studies.

The experts believe the lack of follow-up information on the use of HRT and menopausal status affected the accuracy of other studies. For example failure to account for women who had stopped using HRT during the research period could lead to the risk being underestimated.

When the researchers analysed their own data without adjusting for changes in HRT use or women’s known menopause age, it led to a lower estimate of a 1.7-fold increase in risk.

Dr Heather Currie, a spokesman for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and chair of the British Menopause Society, said: “Women need clear, evidence-based information to break through the conflicts of opinion and confusion about the menopause.

“For many women, any change in breast-cancer risk is outweighed by the benefit on their quality of life, bearing in mind that there are many other factors that increase the risk of breast cancer, for example lifestyle factors.”

Meanwhile a separate study has found that women who expect the worst from a type of breast cancer treatment are more likely to suffer adverse side-effects.

The research, published in the Annals of Oncology, found that women with a negative perception of receiving hormone therapies such as tamoxifen suffered nearly twice the number of side-effects than women with positive expectations or who thought the effects would not be too bad.

The authors looked at 111 women in Germany who had had treatment for hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer.

They questioned the patients about their expectations of the effect of taking hormone therapy at the start of the trial and then assessed them at three months and at two years. Those with higher expectations of side-effects at the start of the study saw a 1.8 increase in their occurrence after two years.

Prof Yvonne Nestoriuc, from the University Medical Centre, Hamburg – who led the study – said: “Our results show that expectations constitute a clinically relevant factor that influences the long-term outcome of hormone therapy.

“Expectations can be modified so as to decrease the burden of long-term side-effects and optimise adherence to preventive anti-cancer treatments in breast cancer survivors.”

Combined HRT could increase breast cancer risk by nearly 300%

Amount of individuals more than 100 in Uk increases nearly fivefold

There are now thought to be a lot more than 500,000 folks aged 90 or above and numbers are growing. Photograph: Daniel Berehulak/Getty Pictures

The number of people more than 100 residing in the United kingdom has elevated virtually fivefold in thirty many years as greater healthcare remedies, housing, nutrition and residing requirements, collectively with a decline in smoking, considerably improved the chances of surviving to a very old age, the Office for National Statistics has mentioned.

There have been an estimated 13,350 centenarians in 2012 – a 73% improve in a decade – and 660 of them were above 105, according to the new figures. However this generation even now represents a very modest proportion of the all round population, it provides an additional stark indication of the mounting issues facing successive governments as they struggle to finance demands on the welfare state including a growing state pension bill.

The number of old guys is also increasing faster than that for girls as the classic gender gap in life expectancy narrows. There are now imagined to be more than 500,000 folks aged 90 or more than and numbers are increasing much more steeply soon after a dip in 2008, which reflected the fall in births during the first planet war. Interestingly, 1918 saw the lowest numbers but followed by a postwar little one boom.

The ONS says the United kingdom, with 21 centenarians per a hundred,000 population, still lags behind countries this kind of as Japan (40) and France (30), the highest proportion in Europe. Russia has just above four per one hundred,000 even though the building nations of China and India have lower figures still.

In 2012, virtually 3-quarters of the UK’s 90 and overs were girls even though the predominance of females is shifting. The intercourse ratio for the centenarians fell from 828 women for every single one hundred guys in 2002 to 588 in 2012. The newest daily life expectancy at birth is 82.6 for women and 78.seven for guys.

The greatest increases of people aged 90-plus have been in England and Wales, with the smallest in Northern Ireland. Scotland and Northern Ireland also have higher male mortality in the age group.

Amount of individuals more than 100 in Uk increases nearly fivefold

Nearly four,000 NHS employees laid off then rehired in excess of three and a half many years

An estimated three,950 NHS employees have been created redundant and subsequently rehired amongst May 2010 and November 2013. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

Labour accused the government of handing out NHS redundancy cheques “like confetti” on Monday as it emerged that virtually four,000 health services staff in England had been manufactured redundant then re-employed in excess of 3-and-a-half many years.

With union anger still simmering at last week’s government announcement that hundreds of 1000′s of NHS employees would be denied a 1% shell out rise, the Department of Health admitted it could not break the “unvalidated” figures down into what variety of jobs these who left the support were performing when they were manufactured redundant. Nor could it say which jobs they had taken when they were rehired.

David Cameron’s official spokesman insisted reforms had been on the way and blamed Labour for “unacceptably lax” guidelines on redundancy when in workplace.

Overall health minister Dan Poulter mentioned an estimated three,950 NHS employees have been made redundant among May 2010 and November 2013 and subsequently rehired, two,570 of them getting been employed on a long lasting basis and 1,380 on fixed-term contracts. The figures came in a written parliamentary solution to Julie Hilling, Labour MP for Bolton West, who has described them as “quite surprising”.

Poulter’s response explained that “by decreasing managers and administrators by in excess of 21,a hundred, we are freeing up further resources for patient care – £5.5bn in this parliament and £1.5bn every 12 months thereafter”.

The shadow health secretary, Andy Burnham, said: “It will be utterly galling for nurses who’ve just had a shell out minimize from David Cameron to see he’s been handing out cheques like confetti to folks who have now been rehired. On his watch we have witnessed spend-offs for managers and pay cuts for nurses.

“It really is clear that people who obtained spend-offs are now coming back to the NHS in ever greater numbers”, mentioned Burnham. “We need to have to know whether or not the prime minister has honoured his promise to recover redundancy payments from people who have been re-employed by his new organisations.

“The sickening scale of the waste induced by Cameron’s reorganisation is finally becoming clear. It will infuriate folks who cannot get a GP appointment or nurses who are struggling to pay the expenses.”

The prime minister’s official spokesman said: “It is essential for action to be taken in this region. That is why reforms are getting created to redundancy arrangements [for senior managers], which includes the capping of payouts and the ability to claw back some or all of the payments if individuals individuals concerned return to operate within a 12 months of being made redundant.

“When it comes to administrative employees in the NHS, there are now 21,000 fewer administrative posts since 2010,” the Downing Street spokesman mentioned. “We are possessing to deal with the legacy of earlier contractual arrangements.”

A Conservative overall health spokesman said: “This is sheer hypocrisy from Labour – this Government’s hands were tied by unacceptably lax guidelines on redundancy which they put into contracts in 2006, and which we’re reforming.”

Peter Carter, basic secretary of the Royal School of Nursing, said: “This staggering waste is an insult to the challenging functioning nurses who were told just final week that there was not adequate money for a modest spend uplift to support cope with the increasing expense of living. If there is funds to hand out to senior managers who are returning to the overall health services, but none to aid nursing workers who have endured 3 many years of spend restraint, then we are dealing with some critically warped priorities.”

Nearly four,000 NHS employees laid off then rehired in excess of three and a half many years

Psychological well being stigma: convincing my mates I was still "me" was nearly impossible

Out of the 5,000 people surveyed, it discovered 34 per cent said they come across discrimination on a weekly or monthly basis, and one particular in 10 explained they encounter it each day. But the strangest reality was that 53 per cent of girls encounter discrimination from their household and close friends, compared to 39 per cent of men.

Sue Baker, director of Time to Change, whose campaign is operating alongside Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s new action program for psychological well being, says: “It could be a single or two factors. Either, if ladies communicate out a lot more about psychological illness, they are probably to report stigma a lot more, but there is also the situation that women are often necessary to be strong for the total family members.”

In my situation, my family members have been very supportive. But, I did notice that out of my pals who handled me differently, it was usually the boys who did so. In retrospect, I feel it wasn’t the mental sickness itself that bothered them, but the meaning they attached to it. They believed I would no longer be the confident, entertaining, talkative person they knew, but instead would become weak and needy.

It was hurtful at the time, but now I know that guys view psychological well being difficulties differently to women. Studies display that men are significantly less comfortable speaking about mental overall health, and the Time to Change report exhibits that while guys do encounter much less of a stigma, in reality 55 per cent men encounter discrimination at work, in contrast to 50 per cent of females.

The final results are hardly surprising. Offices are usually macho environments exactly where men are discouraged from mentioning their emotions let alone a psychological sickness. When banking executives like Lloyds’ Antonio Horta-Osorio and Barclays’ Sir Hector Sants admitted they have been suffering from significant stress final yr, they assisted to break the taboo that many males (and girls) face at operate when it comes to mental overall health.

Baker says men could face discrimination much more because of cultural gender divides. She says: “One of our male situation scientific studies inform us, you are brought up with the knowing that males really do not cry. Pull oneself with each other, is all individuals of a specified generation have heard. Males uncover it hard to talk about psychological wellness in the workplace, but we do know each genders encounter stigma and discrimination.”

The standard stigma looks to come from a misunderstanding about what defines a psychological sickness. Numerous individuals do not know that pressure, depression and nervousness are all varieties of mental illnesses. Depression in certain can be witnessed as ‘just sadness’, but really it is a severe dilemma and impacts women twice as much as men, in accordance to a 2011 European research. In middle-aged girls, depression levels have doubled in the last forty years due to pressures of balancing work and youngsters.

Mental wellness nonetheless carries a large stigma, even with celebrities like Stephen Fry and Ruby Wax speaking publicly about their depression. But the only way the stigma and discrimination will stop is if far more people communicate up about psychological overall health, and discover precisely what it consists of.

I was lucky that the men and women I cared about stood by me while I struggled with my problem, but not absolutely everyone has that degree of assistance. I can only hope that campaigns like Time to Alter, and the government’s new plans, will open people’s eyes up to what psychological illness actually is so they can speak openly to buddies, loved ones and even colleagues without fear of discrimination.

Time to Change is calling for the public to aid lift the taboo about psychological health on Thursday 6 February when they will hold the 1st Time to Speak Day

Psychological well being stigma: convincing my mates I was still "me" was nearly impossible