Sir, - Douglas Keating's article (The Irish Times, August 30th) on back-to-work schemes for the mentally ill run by Worklink omits to consider the example health boards can set by employing of people who have had, or who suffer from, mental illness. It is striking that the one service one would expect to be both well informed and without prejudice in this area, the statutory psychiatric service, fails to do so. This effectively supports employer prejudices about the ability of people with mental illness to work effectively.
In the US and, more recently, in the UK, mental health services have deliberately recruited people with mental health problems, such as schizophrenia, depression and substance abuse, to a range of jobs, including therapeutic ones. Indeed, one NHS mental health service is committed to an employment target of 10 per cent of mentally ill people in all posts, including medical. This effectively transforms mental illness from being an experience that an individual is ashamed of to one that may be talked about openly and is seen as adding to a person's life experience.
All research indicates that people who have experienced mental illness make a valuable contribution to psychiatric services and are often highly effective in therapeutic roles. As long as psychiatric services tacitly discriminate against job applicants with a history of mental illness, the mentally ill will not receive equal opportunities in the wider world of work. - Yours, etc.,
John S.G. Wells, Cochair, Mental Health and Social Care Research Group, Waterford Institute of Technology, Waterford.