Mental Health Nursing (Research Paper Sample)

MENTAL HEALTH NURSING
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Introduction
The Mental Health Act of 2007 is legislation in New South Wales, Australia that seeks to provide a framework on which the treatment, care, and handling of mentally disordered and ill patients can base its operations and activities. The legislation also caters to other pertinent aspects of the mental health sector dealing with issues such as caregivers, nurses’ involvement, and all powers and privileges accorded to the people involved in the mental health treatment and care-giving scenario. Therefore, as part of this paper’s endeavor, an investigation into certain aspects covered by the NSW Mental Health Act of 2007 in relation to the role of nurses in the welfare of mentally disorderly and ill patients is favorable.
Part A
The NSW Mental Health Act of 2007 has many provisions that cater to every aspect of the treatment, handling, and control of mentally ill and disorderly patients. One important aspect of this sensitive issue is the extent to which caregivers and their family members can get involved or involve themselves in the treatment and handling of the consumer, or patients’ treatment regime. The NSW Mental Health Act of 2007 makes several provisions to ensure these parties play an active and befitting role in ensuring the recovery of the consumers.
The provisions that delineate the involvement of caregivers and family members in the NSW Mental Health Act of 2007 falls under Part 9, section B. The first point of this section of the provision explains the appointment of the caregiver by the consumer, if possible. A caregiver is a person who the consumers of treatment chooses or has chosen for him through paternalistic methods for the reason of overseeing all treatment processes and activities (Bonsack, 2012). According to the Act, the caretaker can be a spouse, guardian, de-facto spouse, a close friend, family member, or supporter whose agenda is non-commercial. These caregivers serve under certain rules and conditions set about by the Act, which depend on the consumer’s ability to make a choice regarding their caregiver. One important consideration for these provisions is to reduce the paternalistic treatment of mentally ill and disorderly patients as per the demands of the recovery movement and Australian constitution regarding the rights and privileges of these patients.
Naturally, the consumer or patient is empowered by the Mental Health Act to make the decision about his caregiver if they are in a medically fit position to do it. In addition, Part 9, Section B of the Mental Health Act provides the consumer or his caregivers the guidance on issues related to the treatment. Different aspects are covered concerning the involvement of caregivers and family members. They are; the choice of treatment, access and sharing of information, confidentiality, financial aspects of the treatment, and other medical-related issues (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. and Madden, 2005). First, the Act’s provision indicate the level to which the caretaker can influence the consumer’s diagnosis, treatment and drugs used, handling and management of results and testing, as well as conversations between the doctor and patients. In addition, the Act controls the extent to which family members can involve themselves in the treatment process through management of patient records, pertinent information such as admission and discharge, as well as treatment regime in place.
By placing more of the processes involved in treatment of the mentally ill and disorderly patients in their own hand where possible, the NSW Mental Health Act of 2007 empowers the patients with more influence over their own treatment and recovery processes thus fulfilling the initial desires of the legislation – reducing paternalistic treatment practices in mental health situations.
Part B
Recovery within the context of mental health bears a slightly different meaning from what the general medical community might understand it to mean. While the general medical community understands recovery as a somewhat complete recovery from a physical problem of ailment, mental health issues exceed these definitions to mean something different. Recovery, in its most basic form in mental health, refers to the process of staying in control of the main aspects of one’s life despite being afflicted by a mental illness or disorder (Daly, 2005). Therefore, recovery in the mental health spheres is more of a journey than a destination.
Since John Percival wrote down the details of his own treatment and subsequent recovery from psychosis between 1830 and 1832, the concept of recovery has caught on in the mental health community (Holmes, Rudge and Perron, 2011). While the majority of people understand that the concept itself does not necessarily define full recovery, its meaning and use portrays a great change in the way mental health patients are treated and handled (Gask, 2009). History is rife with depiction of mentally ill and disorderly patients getting tortured and executed based on biased assumptions, ignorance, or sheer contempt, but the recovery movement as it has come to be referred to as, seems to be helpful. The movement has one main objective, which is to improve the treatment, handling, and control of mentally ill and disorderly patients through revocation of paternalistic modes of treatment such as mandatory institutionalization (Holmes, Rudge and Perron, 2011).
In addition, the recovery movement seeks to create frameworks that seek to improve the lives of mentally ill and disorderly patients by encouraging both governments and mental health stakeholders to adopt newer modes of treatment that seek to improve the patients’ quality of life through systematic re-integration as opposed to seclusion and other detrimental methods (Jacobs, Crichton and Visotine, 2008). It has continued to demonstrate through lobbying and legislative changes such as the NSW Mental Health Act of 2007 in Australia that these patients deserve the chances offered by the new methods of treatment and all attached changes in perspective (Knapp, 2007).
Academic and field observation into the concept and implementation of recovery in the mental health scenario has identified several important aspects that seem to optimize its success rates. Interestingly, and as expected, the majority of these supportive aspects revolve around the hope that the afflicted patient can redeem some degree of normalcy by reverting to their original quality of life, or acquiring a new one. These supportive aspects of the concept of recovery as applied in mental health are good relationships, satisfying work, the right living environments, and a development of resilience to adverse conditions such as stigma and stress.
As one of the most important supportive factors in the concept of recovery, good relationships between the patient, his family, and friends or workmates contributes to better quality of life. Mental health issues and illnesses require more support from close family and friends than all other forms of medical conditions making the establishment of good relationships between the patient and his family or peer integral in their recovery (Pilgrim, Pescosolido and Rogers, 2011). These relationships form a close support structure, from which the patient derives not only support and confidence, but also trust and hope in better outcomes.
Recovery in the spheres of mental health without some fulfilling activity such as a satisfying job or hobby is very difficult. Scholars emphasize the need for preoccupation in the processes aimed at rehabilitating mentally ill or disorderly patients. Part of the objective is to stimulate the mental faculties involved in normal reasoning and logic as part of the rehabilitative intervention. In addition, the satisfaction experienced by the consumer during their involvement in the job or hobby provides an optimized environment for the use of medical and other invasive forms of therapy.
Patients suffering for mental illnesses and disorders require the right living conditions. Traditionally, the majority of medical personnel and stakeholders involved in treating and handling mental patients have misinterpreted this aspect to mean seclusion and denial of the common amenities normal humans enjoy. However, the recovery movement seeks to change such archaic mindsets and treatment practices, which have been demonstrated to not only be ineffective in treatment of mental illnesses and disorders, but also seem to impact negatively on the psychiatric health of the patient (Ruggiero, 2008).
Stigma and stress remain some of the main challenges the mental illness and disorder community continues to fight. Society perceptions and treatment of patients with mental illnesses and disorders influences their response to treatment and success rates even with exposure to the right forms of treatment. The recovery process in mental health circles encompasses social drives to embrace these patients without showing them overdue empathy. These forms of treatment continue to be successful precursors to re-integration for mental illness and disorder patients as they feel like part of the society as opposed to former practices that involved asylums, stigmatization, and bullying.
Part C
Nurses play a very important in any scenario necessitating medical intervention. Within these scenarios, they coordinate with the doctors as well as the patients to identify and adopt the most effective and efficient method of treatment. Mental health scenarios are not normal since many a times, the patient is incapacitated in terms of decision-making and logical faculties. However, not all cases exhibit a total lack of reasoning and decision-making on the mental illness and disorde...