Mental Health Chat: Can Mental Health Disorders Be Considered A Disability?
Welcome back to My Jamaican Vignettes. On this our last mental health chat for October 2024, we tackle the question: are mental health disorders a disability?
Mental Health Disorders as a Disability
This is a trickly topic to cover. And before I go into my findings, I wanted to explain how these four topics were chosen this month. I used Asked The Public and filtered mental health questions and Jamaica. Now at the end of the month, I wish I had written more personal essays about my mental health journey and recovery. But alas, we have time in the future to cover those things.
When I initially looked into this topic three weeks, online sources pointed to yes, mental health disorders can be considered a disability but today (Thursday 17 October) while I struggle to sift through Google’s AI responses to find credible sources, I am finding little to support this. It is especially difficult to find information in a local Jamaican context and mental health.
I found one UK government source that stated:
“A mental health condition is considered a disability if it has a long-term effect on your normal day-to-day activity.”
It goes on to define long-term as lasting at least 12 months and normal day-to-day activity is classified as: something you do regularly in a normal day. This includes things like using a computer, working set times or interacting with people.
The mental health conditions that the website listed that could lead to a disability included bipolar disorder, dementia, depression, schizophrenia, and obsessive compulsive disorder.
What do you think? Should mental health conditions be considered a disability?
And if they are considered as such, what support would be needed to assist people with mental health conditions outside of medication? Should there be social intervention programmes targeting people with certain mental health conditions? Who would fund these programmes? Should they be government policy driven or private health experts?
Chantel DaCosta
Chantel DaCosta is a storyteller, editor and lifestyle blogger. She is passionate about mental health awareness and Jamaican women's own-voices stories.
2 Comments
Kimberly
The government does have a few mental health clinics but the funding is usually lower than other sectors and of course, the stigma is still attached about mental health and needing help as being something that is frowned upon.
Chantel DaCosta
I agree, I recall in 2019 when I was first hospitalized upon release I was supposed to go to the public mental health clinic in Stony Hill but then I opted to explore private mental health care.