Psych meds soar as the recession bites….

The number of antidepressants prescribed by the NHS has almost doubled in the last decade, and rose sharply last year as the recession bit, figures reveal. The health service issued 39.1m prescriptions for drugs to tackle depression in England in 2009, compared with 20.1m in 1999 – a 95% jump. Doctors handed out 3.18m more prescriptions last year than in 2008, almost twice the annual rise seen in preceding years, according to previously unpublished statistics released by the NHS’s Business Services Authority. The increase is thought to be due in part to improved diagnosis, reduced stigma around mental ill-health and rising worries about jobs and finances triggered by the economic downturn. But tonight doctors warned that some people are being put on the drugs unnecessarily, especially those with milder symptoms of depression, partly because there is too little access to “talking therapies”, which use discussion rather than drugs to tackle problems.

Now this doesn’t surprise me in the least an increasing level of reliance on meds combined with the fact that this recession is not an equal opportunities one (impact of deep public spending cuts would lead to heavy job losses for women). Meds are cheaper than therapy. According to findings by MIND regarding mental health and recession:

• 1 in 10 had visited their GP for support
• 7% had started a course of medical treatment for depression
• 5% had seen a counsellor
• Half said staff morale was low
• 28% were working longer hours
• A third said staff were having to compete against each other.

Furthermore

Mind’s findings prompt fears for the mental health of hundreds of thousands of workers who face debilitating pressure as businesses tighten their belts. Many staff are working longer hours, competing with colleagues to keep their jobs and facing a slump in morale.

With the recession still ongoing along with expecting more pain courtesy of the Con/Dems by way of massive searing public sector cuts. This means changes in working practices and conditions, modernisation, restructuring, liberalisation, contracting-out, outsourcing and what other words used as a code for privatisation will have a massive emotional and psychological negative impact on people, which will affect their health as we have seen. Recession means depression, with a swirling mix of  a potent cocktail of anxiety, fear, alienation, pressure, stress and atomisation. No wonder people are reaching for the meds. In 2008 doctors were handing out 36m prescriptions, in 2009 we see 39.1m handed out.

We have an epidemic of depression as the kind of society we live in isolates and alienates. The sticking plaster approach of meds will only be able to look at the surface rather than examining the underlining reasons. We live in a debt-ridden insecure world where the ideology defines human beings in terms of material consumption. A dog-eat-dog society that devalues and demeans human beings. The global working class suffer the consequences of neoliberal ideology, people driven to the edge some pushed over the edge. No doubt the global ruling class see the increased misery and depepression as collateral damage as part of the recession. And things will get evidently worse……

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