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Nic
06-06-2011, 09:40
Due to recent tragic events in Los Cristianos there seems to have been more reports about mental health issues on the islands. In yesterday's Diario de Avisos it said that 40% of homeless people in Tenerife are suffering from serious mental health problems. Yesterday Frank was gigging in a bar in San Eugenio and an Irish man that he has known for years was causing trouble. He had been let out of the mental health unit in Candelaria a month ago and wasn't taking his medication. He was demanding to be served a drink but the bar owner refused so he tried ripping one of the TVs out and then decided to lie on the road outside, not the footpath, the road! Obviously this alarmed a lot of people and they left the area so a few bars in the area suffered trade because of this man. Do you think that the police and judges should be allowed to intervene and make people with serious mental health issues be treated daily. There were stories recently to say that a few homeless people had died because they had refused treatment and some locals were trying to get the judges to intervene and force them to have treatment. What do you think should be done about this problem? Obviously they can't be deported because we are all part of the EU and can therefore move freely within it so what can be done to help these people?

reggie
06-06-2011, 09:53
I have asked this before, is tenerife in the EU ?, If not, it should be like the states. 3rd degree when you land, how long you staying and all that, tenerife will end up like the UK, a toilet, I hate seeing lazy arsed people spoiling it for everybody, Tramps and vagrants should be shot and burned, anywhere,

Sundowner
06-06-2011, 10:41
I have asked this before, is tenerife in the EU ?, If not, it should be like the states. 3rd degree when you land, how long you staying and all that, tenerife will end up like the UK, a toilet, I hate seeing lazy arsed people spoiling it for everybody, Tramps and vagrants should be shot and burned, anywhere,

Reggie, Tenerife is part of the E.U. and is subject to European law.

They do have different taxes to most of the E.U. but that is all.

tracey
06-06-2011, 10:46
If a person is a danger to others or themselves and do not medicate themselves, the courts have the right to section them under The Mental Health Act.

fonica
06-06-2011, 13:27
There but for the grace of God go us all.Maybe we should try and be a bit more understanding.Many of these people need professional help and we should be asking the police why they are not using existing laws to pick up the people who have clear mental health issues and take them to hospital to be assessed.

Loaded
06-06-2011, 17:53
My brother had a run in with a homeless person at MErcadona in Cabo Blanco, he'd been giving the guy a bit of change for weeks on his regular visits and the guy had become more and more demanding. In the end my brother said "here's 5 euros spend it wisely because that's the last I'm giving you".

He came out of the supermarket and the guy was blocking his path and wouldn't let him in his car, he had to forcibly move the guy out of the way of his car.

On his next visit his car was stabbed with a screw driver or similar object and it cost him a lot to fix the hole in his bonnet.

Obviously this guy wasn't right in the head, the Bulgarian wasn't either........

These people get so desperate and it's clear their heads are muddled on a mixture of depression and alcohol.

They need help. The only way is for Tenerife to improve it's homeless support network, giving them a few euros on the street is just going to make them think you're going to supply a gravy train and when you stop that gravy train they will be angry.

They need proper support and help to try and deal with the underlying psychological problems they clearly have. If this support was better in Tenerife my brother wouldn't have a hole in his car and that poor woman might still be alive.

Susief
06-06-2011, 18:15
I worked as a mental health support worker in the 90's and helped keep people in the community with support.

We had quite a few who we got quite well and living fairly independently but once they did they stopped taking their meds and ended up in hospital under the Mental Health Act. It's a vicious circle!

rosemary
06-06-2011, 18:35
It seems to me it all rests upon Statistics. Those that have the power to decide whether or not a patient can be released into society are conforming to statistical advice. i.e. how many members of the public will be in mortal danger if they are released. if the answer is something like (and I am guessing) 1 in a million then the answer is no doubt, release him or her. If it is a question of whether the public are in danger of simply being threatened or injured then I guess it similarly doesnīt merit keeping them locked up. I am a cynic about this particular issue. The overall costs involved in keeping them permanently away from the general public will ultimately outweigh the obvious and most sensible solution.i.e. they should always be kept under lock and key.
What can we ordinary mortals do about it? Anyone got any sensible ideas????

Nic
06-06-2011, 18:43
There but for the grace of God go us all.Maybe we should try and be a bit more understanding.Many of these people need professional help and we should be asking the police why they are not using existing laws to pick up the people who have clear mental health issues and take them to hospital to be assessed.

Oh I'm understanding alright, I think the man that I mentioned really needs help and should have been given the support he deserved. He was in hospital for a long time and had been taking medication daily however the hospital deemed him fit to go back on the streets again but he hasn't taken medication. he's a homeless man, perhaps it's more important for him to have food than to spend whatever little he has on medication. Some people phoned his mother to ask if she would be willing to help him and she said she didn't want to know that she washed her hands of him. Mental health has such a stigma attached to it, there are different degrees and everyone that has mental health issues whether it be slight depression or full blown schizophrenia should be entitled to help, not put back on the streets because the hospital needs a bed. I just wondered what the answer was because the man I mention was obviously a danger to himself, had it been dark he could easily have been killed while lying on the road. The mind is a powerful tool that can easily destroy.

Apollo
06-06-2011, 18:53
I think that whatever peoples views are, the situation needs to be improved, even if it for such a callous cause as tourism.
There are mental health problems everywhere, we all know that, but if the government are so difficult about it here then, ultimately, they are going to be shooting themselves in the foot. How many more horrific/disturbing/unpleasant/violent situations need to be happen and be witnessed before people start to think twice about coming here and choose a different destination.
It's not rocket science.
This deal with the Bulgarian guy. I read (and I apologise if this is inaccurate) that he couldnt afford the meds after being released...well, that does make sense.
The thing with Tenerife is that whilst its a lovely place, and a lot of stuff is cheap here (usually the luxuries - fags, booze etc), in order to recieve healthcare you either need to BE employed or be SELF employed. Jobs are hard to come by and if you are self employed you are expected to fork out a, quite frankly, ridiculous sum of money each month JUST to be allowed to work. Then add on the taxes. €310 per month is a lot of money. Yet without that you are screwed, are you not? You cant rely on your health card forever and I dont know what other countries provide in its place.
Perhaps less money needs to be spent on pointless fancy signposts, guardia check points etc and throw a bit of money at trying to sort out the state of the place with regard to the homeless and mentally ill.

cainaries
06-06-2011, 19:26
I think that whatever peoples views are, the situation needs to be improved, even if it for such a callous cause as tourism.
There are mental health problems everywhere, we all know that, but if the government are so difficult about it here then, ultimately, they are going to be shooting themselves in the foot. How many more horrific/disturbing/unpleasant/violent situations need to be happen and be witnessed before people start to think twice about coming here and choose a different destination.
It's not rocket science.
This deal with the Bulgarian guy. I read (and I apologise if this is inaccurate) that he couldnt afford the meds after being released...well, that does make sense.
The thing with Tenerife is that whilst its a lovely place, and a lot of stuff is cheap here (usually the luxuries - fags, booze etc), in order to recieve healthcare you either need to BE employed or be SELF employed. Jobs are hard to come by and if you are self employed you are expected to fork out a, quite frankly, ridiculous sum of money each month JUST to be allowed to work. Then add on the taxes. €310 per month is a lot of money. Yet without that you are screwed, are you not? You cant rely on your health card forever and I dont know what other countries provide in its place.
Perhaps less money needs to be spent on pointless fancy signposts, guardia check points etc and throw a bit of money at trying to sort out the state of the place with regard to the homeless and mentally ill.
That's a very good point - I hadn't thought about the fact that someone homeless obviously couldn't afford the medicines.

How many of these homeless people are actually local? Does seem a bit hard to expect the population of a relatively small island to support so many homeless and mentally ill people from other countries. There needs to be a huge European co-ordinated effort to sort this all out and I doubt it will ever happen.

Spain is in the E.U. and the Canary Islands are part of Spain. Technically, however, they are not in the E.U. I doubt this changes the situation regarding handling the homeless but it is important to remember this with regard to taking duty free back into the UK (off topic, sorry).

kieraj
06-06-2011, 23:27
well said, we need to realise that people with mental health problems won't go away as much as people try and ignore them we all know someone with mental health issues and either bother or ignore them. I worked for many years with these people and it can be soul destroying but these people don't choose to be ill so a wee bit of empathy/compassion can go a long wayxx

Nic
07-06-2011, 08:12
Perhaps one option would be to provide homeless people with free medication. With the economic situation the way it is just now there are more and more people living on the streets and as the reports in yesterdays press showed, 40% of them suffer from mental health problems. Medication is expensive so maybe they should be given free medication until they can get themselves into some kind of accomodation. Maybe if their medication was provided then they would be in a better frame of mind to deal with getting employment and somewhere to live sorted. If they don't have medication then they'll never see a way out.

with cheese
07-06-2011, 08:33
I think the stress of living on the streets is enough to give you mental health issues.
I can't blame anyone for moving to the Canaries if they are going to be homeless. Dry and warm most of the time and plenty of easy pickings for food. Relatively safe and loads of people with spare change, might even consider it as a business.

The only way to deal with this in any country is to send the non nationals back to their homelands, where they will have local knowledge etc. They should be looked after and put on the right track by their own.
If they are not interested in improvement we should have an international Island where we just dump them and let them get on with it, obviously try first to iron out issues.
For local homeless, they should be offered support to get back, including meds but made to work for the privilege. The work should be enough to give them self esteem etc and get them back into the working world.
We have plenty of jobs in all countries for these type of people to do for a new start. This should be managed by a charity not a company or government.
The charity should be funded by the wage that would normally be paid for the work they do, ie dustperson, local authority pay say 15,000pa that is what charity gets and then provides accommodation, food and a little pocket money, all meds.

But as Reggie says if just lazy asses shoot and burn.

rosemary
07-06-2011, 09:19
I read that these poor people are given enough money for food and their medecines, just not enough for alcohol and the "other kind" of drugs as well. They are hardly going to lead exemplary lives when they leave Hospital. They need to be in controlled environments for their own and the general publicīs safety. And so we are back to state funding again. A vicious circle.