Mental health issues could persist in Dorset months after restrictions
It comes as we’re allowed to meet in groups of six or two households.
A Dorset Psychologist is warning mental health problems could still arise for many, months after lockdown restrictions lift.
While we may be enjoying some hope as groups of six are allowed to meet together again, Dr Andy Mayers is warning the events of the last year are still taking their toll.
He says not enough is known about what the long term effects of isolation could be:
“Certainly the easing doesn’t mean that this is going to go away at all. Apart from anything else, we need to remember to be careful as we do go forward from here.
“At the same time, a lot of people have faced an awful lot of very difficult things over this last year and it’s quite possible it could take several months before we see the true impact, but we’ll be ready for that.”
Andy says it wouldn’t be fair to blame the mental health issues that have arisen on the lockdowns as they’ve been essential in keeping us all safe. But he says it has pulled back the curtain and early on it showed us the insufficiencies of England’s mental health system.
He added:
“There’s been a need, because of COVID, we’ve needed to go into lockdown for the safety of everyone, to make sure everyone’s vaccinated, and that the NHS is safe.
However, it’s true that whilst in lockdown a number of issues have raised with mental health because of isolation, because of fear and anxiety and a whole serious of other things.
But to actually blame lockdown to cause that problem simply isn’t true. I think what it does illustrate is our mental health services simply weren’t up to scratch before lockdown and we needed to be in a better position to pick these things up, and that’s lessons learnt.”