There is to be another event run by Opportunity Goole for those exploring the possibility of starting their own business and those who have taken the plunge, at Goole library on 2 October. Your writer’s observations of previous such events suggest they are very well attended.
Opportunity Goole is one of the Town Deal projects. Presumably, the rationale is that new businesses in the centre of town, if successful, might contribute to its regeneration and reinvigoration.
Setting up a business is challenging, risky and stressful. The same is true of running and growing a business.
Several conversations arising from chance encounters in town have involved people who work hard, maybe having more than one job, none of which are well paid. It’s demanding, tiring, probably stressful at times but necessary to survive. They then see people within their close circle ‘making’ more than they do through hard work from state financial support due to a serious mental health condition. They seem to feel that the person with the mental health condition isn’t trying hard enough and is using their diagnosis as an excuse to avoid having to work for a living.
If you are working long hours for not that much simply to survive, it’s very understandable why you would feel resentful, even angry.
If people with serious mental health conditions are to work, they need places to work. Small businesses collectively are big employers. Serious mental health conditions are often triggered, and exacerbated into crisis, by stress. If a person with a serious mental health condition has a mental health crisis brought on by stress in the workplace, what is the impact on the small, business, or larger business, or indeed any kind of employer? For a small business, it could undermine their financial viability.
When it was founded the NHS was modelled on the Tredegar Medical Aid Society and Sick Relief Fund under which members of the community, many of them miners, paid into a fund which provided health care, and a hospital free at the point of delivery, and also sickness pay and funeral expenses. Many miners became ill, and died, because coal dust damaged their lungs. Mine owners lived in what were in effect stately homes, often one in London and one close to the mines, and probably had holiday homes and a hunting lodge too. When miners lungs failed them, their income when working was insufficient to cover medical expenses. When they became unable to work, and/or died, the family was left with no income. Until the Tredegar Medical Aid Society was set up.
The system we have today of free at point of delivery healthcare, sick pay, and support for those unable to work is founded on the principle of collectively looking after those who are vulnerable. It reflects the reality that some of the work which is done and is essential to society is not paid well enough to cover out of earnings things like medical care and periods of not being able to work. Also, that most small and many medium sized business do not have high enough income streams to fund the needs of their owners and workers in these areas.
Fraud must be addressed, in all areas of life, but do we want to punish the vulnerable, sick and in need by abolishing healthcare free at point of delivery, and other support for those in difficulty because some abuse the system?
Also, on the issue of people with mental health conditions, to what extent do you really know what is going on in somebody’s mind? One of the most important lessons for your writer from a self funded course on dementia care for a family member was to accept the reality that a person with dementia was experiencing in their mind rather than trying to defeat it with logic and your own perception of reality. That is true of many mental health conditions – and especially the very serious ones. High levels of stress trigger serious mental health conditions. Pushing somebody with a serious condition too hard can have tragic consequences – suicide, suicide plus killing of all family members, the tragedy not so long ago on a summer’s day in Nottingham when three people were murdered by somebody with a serious mental health condition out in the community left to fend for themselves.
The public library and leisure centre do a lot of good work supporting people who may be experiencing difficulties with their mental and physical health, avoiding more expensive intervention when things reach crisis point. That’s collective funding for the common good. Isn’t that a good thing?
The photo today shows why residents feel the work on Dunhill Road taking place between now and near Christmas, if done well, will be a good thing. The signs are encouraging so far. It’s the sort of long overdue work needed on many of the streets of more established parts of town. Do you agree?