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Only one test that should determine centres’ future
• IT is really sad that Lynton Bedford finds the psychiatric system “racist” (Mental health system institutionally racist, August 15). Such divisive language will not help to make services better.
I am from a minority community too; one just as recognisable as Lynton’s. There are no services specifically aimed at Chinese and there is little provision for us which is culturally sensitive. No member of Islington Council or of Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust board and its governors is Chinese. We do not really demand that there should be because if we do that then each of the sections of this diverse community in which we live would be able to demand a service for itself. That would not be possible for a number of reasons and it would not be good for community harmony.
Surely what we want is good, inclusive services which everyone will feel happy to use. Had Lynton expressed that view and said that the trust is not doing much to provide them then he would have my support.
The psychiatric services are certainly oppressive and they may be dogged by “institutional racism”.
The board of the trust, led by its chairman, Professor David Taylor, and its chief executive, Wendy Wallace, has spent the last few years implementing a service reduction programme in an attempt to gain the organisation foundation trust status. It has reduced the number of inpatient beds, closed the only Islington day hospital and reduced community mental health teams. Although it has adopted what it calls the recovery model, all it really seems to concern itself with is getting service-users back to work, which in most cases is not real work anyway. It needs to do this to “tick the boxes”.
Lynton is right in saying that there are few day services left specifically designed for those with mental health problems and there is no doubt that Lambo day centre plays a special role for black service users in Islington and Camden. There is no good reason for closing Ashley Road, Southwood Smith (both cater for all service users) or Lambo and the people who attend these centres want them to remain open.
Councillor John Gilbert, Peter Nevins of Mind and Peter Jones from Islington Borough User Group may agree with the recovery model and think that these centres don’t operate in line with it. That should not be the test. It will just suit the current mental health care fashion. The test must be whether the centres meet the needs of those who go to them. If they do, they should not be closed. Once they are gone they will never reappear.
J LIU
Cheverton Road, N19
• LYNTON Bedford is just saying what everyone in the black community is thinking: race is at the heart of the decision about Lambo day centre.
This Afro-Caribbean day centre at Despard Road in Archway was created to compensate for the disproportionate number of black people locked up in psychiatric wards. Lambo is a form of positive discrimination that, if removed, will allow institutional racism to go unchecked in the mental health system.
The council may have told the editor that it won’t be closing Lambo, but the plans amount to a closure.
Moving all the users from two other centres into what is currently an all-black centre will mean that Despard Road will no longer be a black service. The name and most of the dedicated content will have to go. People are getting angry that Islington is not listening. Wake up, Islington.
YOUSEF CAMPBELL (community worker)
Junction Road, N19
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