I open my eyes–I need to leave–leave–leave–right now–now!–get up–I need to leave–dress–go–now–leave–leave or you will die–you’re going to die–walk more quickly–those people hate you–are you there yet?–why aren’t you there yet?
Just another day living with ‘Pure O’, or the closest contextual equivalent I can muster. But we’ll get to what all that means later.
In another world, Jeremy Hunt – Health Secretary, MP for South West Surrey, Hogwash Magazine’s ‘Most Popular Politician in the British Empire Since Wilberforce’ – has revealed his latest gambit to combat a problem that has brought the country to its knees and run the treasury dry (it’s true: they’ve only got coppers left, and vending machines have a lower limit of 5p).
Yes, that’s right – the waste of prescription medication. It costs £300 million per year, you know! And Jeremy Hunt’s measure will save us £1bn… somehow. Although my confusion is probably more to do with the Independent article I read on the issue rather than Hunt’s arithmetic. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt on that one.
So what’s the plan? Well, in his capacity as Super Head Doctor (he has a PPE degree from Oxford), Hunt has proposed labelling all prescriptions costing over £20 as being “funded by the UK taxpayer,” along with the non-subsidised cost of the drug. You might have guessed by now that I’m not in favour of the idea, but in the interest of full disclosure I should say that the initiative has been backed both by the Chief Medical Officer, Dame Sally Davies, and the head of the NHS Confederation. Perhaps this really will get the NHS back on its feet, despite horrifying budgetary cuts and governmental malevolence from Mr Hunt’s party; maybe someday I will rue my words. I really hope I do. But I’m sceptical.
Something that is lacking from Hunt’s rhetoric, and from the statements issued by Ms Davies and other high-ranking officials offering opinions, is a personal aspect. I make no reservations in saying this is a reform that will contribute to the degradation of patient wellbeing and in some cases death.
I have ‘Pure O’, which I assure you is not a brand of orange juice, nor some kind of energy drink, nor some kind of supervillain-death-ray-energy source. It’s a form of OCD invoking obsessive and harmful thoughts – practically all day, and certainly every day. It’s a right old bastard.
In the beginning, my doctor had flat-out refused to prescribe me anything for it, but, several months later in February 2014, I was put on to a course of Fluoxetine. It’s more widely known as Prozac, the brand name, and is one of the most commonly prescribed anti-depressants on the planet. And it helped! It really helped. But taking the medication was a psychological issue in itself.
Well, it wasn’t so much the actual taking of it, since I’d been trained into taking tablets in the morning – my parents were crazy and were into fish oil supplements when I was a child – which was just as pleasant as it sounds. It was more how I had to obtain the drugs which I desperately needed. This involved a trip to the doctor to obtain the prescription, and then a trip to the pharmacy to pay £8 for the medication (a real bargain, but I’ll get on to that), and a repetition of the same cycle every three weeks or so. Every time, the fear of the prescription not being renewed. Every time, the fear of people judging me. Every time, the fear of taking something that I didn’t need (though I absolutely did), the fear of wasting people’s money. This psychological toll is heavily underestimated by those in positions of bureaucratic and economic power.
A good way to sum up many mental illnesses is a sense of worthlessness, of being undeserving of life, and Jeremy Hunt’s ‘initiative’ plays strongly on those weaknesses. I paid £8 a month to function like a regular human being. Really it should have cost £150, which I didn’t know then but found out today. And had I known that fact in the darkest times, I might well have concluded that, no, I was not worth £150 of taxpayers’ money. Perhaps I would have more realistically considered the most extreme form of NHS moneysaving.
And this is the crux of the problem. Perhaps, yes, labelling prescription medication will be helpful if it’s for something like a toe infection or the overinflated god complex from which Hunt tragically suffers. Perhaps more will consider the impact of not finishing their courses of medication, and will re-evaluate whether or not they ‘need’ the medication. Except that’s what doctors are for, and prescriptions are proof that you do need them. Sigh.
Nevertheless, it is still shocking in terms of drugs used to manage mental health issues. Hunt proudly proclaims, in so many words, that this is an initiative designed to show the average taxpayer just how much of a drain they are to the world. Combine that with the feelings of worthless inherent to mental health difficulties, and you have a cocktail so toxic that you wouldn’t even wash down pills with it.
A few months ago, I came off the medication. Today I will go back on it for various reasons. I hope you all think I’m worth a tiny fraction of your money. It’ll certainly be on my mind.
Written by James Haikney
Talk Socialist News 