HBO’s very own every year Emmy Award Winning Show led by the comedian and writer John Oliver titled “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” released its new episode recently. This Episode was particularly hard-hitting because it focused on “Mental Health Care” as there’s a stigma around the world when it comes to Mental Health for a person and to seek care for your mind, sounds ridiculous to people, oftentimes a lot of them.
John didn’t start with the main story like the previous episode but instead took some time to discuss the massive heatwave that has struck Europe and how people are coping with it but also mentioned one other mammal that’s making the lives of Europeans a bit harder, and that’s a walrus named Freya who is going on and getting on the boats that are parked and sinking all of the boats, destroying some of them in the process of getting on since a Walrus weigh more than 1000 Pounds.
The second notable thing John focused on is, Britain’s Prime Minister election after Boris Johnson resigned from the post after a series of scandals and introduced both of the top 2 candidates in a funny way, from making one’s hand overly inappropriate hand gestures to awkward one-liner of the other.
The main story focused on the US’s Mental Healthcare System, how it was formed and what changes were done from Healthcare Institutions that felt like prisons for mentally sick people to having Community Health Centers that will be responsible for outpatient mental health care. The show features a short video from a documentary about beauty parlor workers which showed that a mentally sick or depressed woman can feel good or better if she’s prettier.
Humans have not particularly handled the stigma around Mental Health well from the start and while it’s getting a bit better, we’re still not there. The institutions that are present, some notable problems that citizens face is the shortage of therapists which caused this situation where more than half the people who need mental health care do not receive it by showing an example of a couple whose son had to wait in Emergency Department for 27 days that was already overloaded with 15 other kids.
The Episode focused more on the products that are coming since Silicon Valley seems a lot invested in it and focused on one startup app called Woebot which has an AI Bot that talks to you when you’re feeling mentally depressed. However, the app didn’t quite function in the way you would want a therapy app to, giving a bit inappropriate answers which can cause fatal damage. Another scenario was about companies that are advertising on TikTok like Cerebral whose employees do not even have the training and are tackled with calls from someone who is suicidal.
It all came to this understanding that the current Healthcare Solution for Mental Health is not good and it needs to be corrected with good changes and bills. John suggested funding mental health plans more and showed an example of California’s Healthcare Bill that was very good and asked fellow states to follow that lead.
Please let us know what are your thoughts on the Episode down below.