Justice in Access to and Distribution of Resources in Psychiatry and Mental Health Care

Abstract

Since the end of the 1980s, health care systems in the developed world have been experiencing increasing difficulties to guarantee universal access to a comprehensive package of health services. Rising costs of care, due to increasing demand and the introduction of expensive technologies, have led to a limitation of the supply of care: economic assessment of services, priority-setting, delisting, rationing by way of guidelines and needs assessment, waiting lists and co-payments are all trying to limit both the supply and demand of care services. The scarcity of resources is particularly noticed in mental health care. The chapter gives an overview of the general ethical principles of justice to health care, and the application of these principles to resource allocation in relation with mental health care. The chapter starts with an introduction to the concept of necessary care and the moral importance of healthcare as argued by Norman Daniels. The chapter continues with the concept of solidarity that plays an important role in the moral foundation of health care systems in Europe. The chapter then discusses the concept of need as a criterion for distribution of health care resources. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)