Psychology

There is need for the government intervention in helping people with schizophrenia to access treatment. Many victims of schizophrenia end up being homeless. This work is a study to the issue that government should come for the rescue of schizophrenia victims especially those who are homeless considering their increasing number.

The Government Should Help Homeless People With Schizophrenia Get Treatment Because Of The Growing Number Who Suffers From This Type Of Mental Illness.

Introduction
Any government should seek to ensure the welfare of its subject. Various diseases may lender a person unable to participate in political, social and economic activities. Diseases affecting ones physical fitness either permanently may in one way or another affect ones life say politically, socially, and economically. The worse is a disease accompanied by mental complications.  One of these diseases is schizophrenia whose impact is mental disorders on the patient. This paper is a research proposal aimed to the statement that the government should help homeless people with schizophrenia get treatment due to the growing number of people suffering from this type of mental illness.

Background of the study
In the recent decades, cases of homelessness on mentally disabled patient have gradually increased. During 1980s United States recorded a dramatic increase in cases of homeless persons. On the other hand, the public perception on homeless people is also not that positive. More alarming the field of medicine and that of psychiatry has continued to ignore mentally handicapped homeless people.

Homeless people suffering from schizophrenia are estimated to contribute about 33-50 of Americans who are homeless. The prevailing failure of community health care to meet the needs of schizophrenia, deinstitutionalization, and various economic forces has continued to cause the increase of homeless schizophrenia victims.  The negative impact of this disease on the victims is also alarming. It is estimated that people with schizophrenia mortality rate is four times as compared to that of normal population, additionally this rate is twice more than the schizophrenia victims who are not homeless. It widely happens that, once a schizophrenia victim is homeless, it is hard to access medical treatment. (Folsom and Jeste 2002). Therefore there is a great and an urgent need for the government intervention to provide treatment for homeless schizophrenia patients so as to safe their dear lives.

Literature review
Study on the cases of schizophrenia patients has been done by a number of scholars. Folson and Jeste (2002), claims that cases of schizophrenia has been more prevalent among homelessness persons. Their study found that schizophrenia among the youth is highest and lower among the older people.  The older shelter users suffering from schizophrenia were also noted to be likely to access treatment as compared to younger shelter users. The cases of schizophrenia were also noted to be two times greater among homeless women as compared to men. Those under chronic homelessness were found to have highest rate of schizophrenia. Additionally, there have been significant barriers keeping off the schizophrenia victims from treatment access. It was also evident that vulnerability of people with schizophrenia to becoming homeless is very high. More particularly, a study carried out in St Louis showed a third of schizophrenia victims who sought treatment from psychiatrists was not successful.

There in need to have a different understanding of schizophrenia. The perception of the public and the government should be changed. The believe that it is okay for people with schizophrenia to stay in cities, sleep on buildings corridors and in landfills, and the dirty places in the city is an outdated idea. Increase of people with schizophrenia in the cities is alarming. There is need for collective responsibility anchored by the government to save people with schizophrenia. (Lovell 1997)

Munoz etal (1998) study reported that to many homeless people, mental disorder preceded their present predicaments of being homeless. They also noticed a deficit in intervention activities by the medical practitioners in USA and Spain. There has also been a great concern on the increase of homelessness by European scholars.  A positive correlation has also been noted between homelessness and mental illness.

Major issues
First, from the above work it is clear that there is an increase of cases of homelessness. Secondly in one way of another many people who are homeless had a mental disorder in their life.  People with Schizophrenia contribute the largest percentage to the number of people who are homeless. Thirdly, there have been an increasing number of people with schizophrenia who are homelessness in many parts of the world.

Why government intervention
Vividly, from the above review, the increase of homeless people with schizophrenia is here with us. The negative impact of this disease to the victim, say increase in their death rates, break of social relationship calls for government to help them access the treatment.  The public negative perception and not wanting to be associated with people with schizophrenia has added to the predicaments of the victims.  Some victims have been disowned by their relatives after a long time of unsuccessful treatment or due to lack of money needed to finance treatment.  The fact that a big number of homeless schizophrenia patient are youth, meaning people who can participate fully in labor force if healthy, calls for government action towards their help.