Forensic Mental Health In Covid Affected Students

Welcome to BDSM-5, Bondage Diagnostic and Statistical Manual 5th Edition. I will be writing about mental health, mental ill health and states inbetween.

This week students are starting university, an event so infamous for causing viral outbreaks it was a meme even before coronavirus. The government failed to use the time bought by lockdown to do any useful pandemic mitigation, so this has led to new outbreaks and student lockdowns. So far it’s the first horror stories are from Manchester and Scotland, but don’t worry, it’ll come to everywhere else next. Oxbridge hasn’t returned yet, fond memories of my time there!

Without a vaccine or a workable track and trace system there’s no way of students returning to normal. Thousands of 18 year olds have been tricked into believing there will be in person university teaching this year. When they arrive they discover this is a lie, and instead they will be held in their crap student dorms with guards to prevent them leaving. If they leave they will be kicked out with no money back. They have fewer rights than any other members of society, they can’t go to the pub, see friends or even get a job to pay the bills.

And they will be blamed for a second wave of deaths anyway. 

This was done to extract rent, because that is what we as a country value above all else. Students staying at home don’t make landlords any money. 

So far so predictable, it’s the UK, it’s what we do. But what’s the solution? In Manchester one thing that both University management and students union can agree upon is that it involves mental healthcare. The NUS statement emphasises the need for 'access to mental health services', and the university points out that it will provide ‘wellbeing support’.

I’m a psychiatry trainee, and I’m struggling to find the mental illness here. There’s no DSM code for being locked in a cupboard. CBT worksheets aren’t going to let students hug their parents again. Sertraline doesn’t give you the power to sneak past security and fluoxetine can’t set up a workable mass testing programme. Students being distressed is an entirely normal response to an awful situation. The solution to enforced isolation isn’t to speak to a doctor, it’s to go home. This has nothing to do with mental health, it is a scam exploiting young people to steal their money, deliberately pursued by university management. I can’t solve this, it’s a political problem.

Actually I'll make my claim even stronger. Even if mental health provision could make a difference here, it would still be terrible. The job of mental health professionals isn't to patch people up so landlords can punch them again but harder. We see the same with shoddy resilience training for NHS staff as a way to excuse unnacceptable working conditions. It all fits a broader pattern, holes in our social safety net are papered over with vague platitudes about mental health support.

The language of mental health is being abused to absolve institutions of responsibility for their actions. Any pretence of a duty of care goes out the window the second it conflicts with the economic interests of landlords. We need to send the students home in as orderly way as possible and not bring back any more universities who aren't already there. If necessary the government should bail out the universities. It might be expensive, but better than passing the bills onto 18 year olds paying for their own prison cells.