Article too strong? I think not

doi:10.1136/bmj.39176.452199.3A

BMJ 2007;334:761 (14 April), doi:10.1136/bmj.39176.452199.3A

Letters

Institutional racism

Article too strong? I think not

The first 100% of the full text of this article appears below.

Although I understand the results of AESOP and the logic ofAni and Ani's argument (previous letter),¹ I fail to see howa lack of community supports can be allowed to justify restraintor the ill-informed ethnocentric misbehaviours of the NHS (orany institution that claims to care).

Unless and until every potential confounder to providing a healthyintervention is rooted out, then nothing will change. Afterall, if hospitals, in Ani and Ani's view, continue to supportlack of community or family cohesion by admitting people becauseof inadequate support, what will ever happen to change thosevery communities and families in a more positive direction?Perhaps they are in the state they are in precisely becausethese folk feel so systematically enfeebled.

And, surely, this is how we help to "make mental health everyone'sbusiness"?

Christopher L Manning, chief executive officer, Primhe (Primary care mental health and education)

Teddington, Middlesex TW11 9HG

chris.manning@primhe.org

Competing interests: None declared.