Health Care Persuasive Essay

Audience, purpose and genre:

I will be writing a brief to present to the Minister of Health and Long-Term Care, Dr. Eric Hoskins, or the Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. David Williams. My purpose is to persuade the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-term Care to consider, research, and develop neural implants and brain computer interfaces (BCIs) as a solution for suicide prevention and mental illnesses. If the technology is successful in Ontario, there is a higher chance of it gaining traction. Ontario officials would have the biggest influence in infrastructure changes due to its percentage of seats held in the House of Commons. The Ministry is “working to establish a patient-focused, results-driven, integrated and sustainable publicly

funded health system.” They will likely support neural implants, if proven to uphold this mission.

Introduction:
Neural Implants: A Solution to Mental and Neurological Disorders
One in four people in the world will be affected by mental or neurological disorders at some point in their lives. Around four hundred fifty million people currently suffer, placing mental disorders among the leading causes of ill-health and disability worldwide. [1] These numbers do not account for the friends and families who are also affected. Nearly two-thirds of people with a known mental disorder never seek help or treatment. [1]
In general, Canada is lacking affordable, effective and accessible mental health services. Dr. Eric Hoskins, as the Minister of Health and Long-Term Care, you have the power to enhance the quality of life of millions of Canadians. The goal of this brief is to present a more effective and viable solution to the current mental health service deficit.
The current state of mental health services is ineffective and poorly budgeted.

Some interesting numbers were presented in the Mental Health Atlas 2011 for Canada, published by the World Health Organization. It reports that at rates per 100,000 population, there were 467.15 admissions to psychiatric beds in general hospitals but only 12.61 psychiatrists 46.56 psychologists. For the same rates per 100,000 population, only 2.1 psychiatrists were being trained in an educational institution and an even smaller number of psychologists at 0.33. [2] There is a lack of mental health professionals in the sector and these numbers are diminishing. In addition, only 7.2% of the total health budget in Canada is allocated to mental health services. [2] Craig Newnes has spent the last thirty years in the mental health industry and has spent the last eighteen as director of the National Health Services (NHS). He investigates the harm that the current “psy complex” --commonly known as the mental health or mental health services--actually inadvertently causes patients. [3] Not only do those who are currently in care, or have been in the past, find themselves pushed from therapist to psychiatrist and back again. They are prescribed various medications to “hold them over” so they do not harm themselves or others. Not to mention the large number of people who suffer that are unable to see a primary physician to even get this long process started. Those who suffer will find themselves stuck at a hopeless dead end with no other

options.
A consequence of untreated or poorly treated mental illnesses is another aspect of the vicious cycle: homelessness. In a publication from the Library of Parliament, Laura Munn-Rivard states that: “Individuals with mental health problems or mental illnesses are predisposed to experiencing housing insecurity and homelessness, and poor mental health can be caused, triggered or aggravated by homelessness or housing that does not meet a certain standard of adequacy, affordability and suitability.” [4] An effective solution to mental illnesses can help solve two of Canada’s issues.
John Dewey Jones discusses the possibilities of nanotechnology in the health sector in his book The Betterment of the Human Condition. He asserts that “we can improve on our current bodies, [and] removing … design flaws...” [5] The use of nanotechnology and neural implants can be used in place of current treatment plans to increase the prognosis of mental illnesses. Retinal prostheses, cochlear implants, spinal cord stimulation, are just examples of what brain computer interfaces (BCIs) can be used for. [6] Why not mental illnesses based on chemical imbalances?