Equality and Inequality in Health Care: The Case of Mental Health

Abstract

This paper is based on the observation that some certainties in the care and rehabilitation of mentally ill people have not been and are not yet sufficiently guaranteed; furthermore, discrimination and inequalities are generated by a certain kind of science and politics. So we conducted a study at a Diagnosis and Care Psychiatric Service (DCPS) located in the South of Italy. We have observed and stated that some inequalities in care are redressed when dramatic situations must be coped with so that the more the situation is dramatic, the more inequalities will be prevented. At the same time we have observed that in relation to some phenomena and etiologies, unlike others, inequalities in treatment do persist. Therefore we have worked out and developed a possible model to redress the imbalance, by drastically redesigning the agreements among public, private, para-private, and social private services by means of innovative systems targeted to users and their families, rather than to facilities.