In your article “Poverty sends 9,000 to NTB hospital” (The Jakarta Post, Dec. 15) you shower the reader with some interesting statistics regarding the number of mentally distressed persons treated at NTB Mental Hospital in the province of West Nusa Tenggara.
“As many as 9,142 people have been treated as of September this year, 766 of them were treated at the emergency unit, 7,254 patients had received outpatient treatment and 852 had received inpatient treatment.” This adds up to 8,872. Where are the remaining 270 patients?
We continue. “We recorded a rising trend this year compared to last year” the article continues. “In 2008, the hospital recorded 863 patients treated at the emergency unit, 9,823 outpatients and 983 inpatients.” This adds up to 11,669. There is hardly any rising trend to be seen here.
The statistics rattle on further: “Based on a survey conducted by the Health Ministry Statistics Agency in 2007, NTB ranked 10th in terms of the number of mental illness sufferers with a prevalence rate of 12.8 percent of its population.” Wow, a whopping 12.8 percent! Makes one wonder about the numbers 1 until 9!
As if this isn’t enough: “NTB is also ranked fifth among 33 provinces for the highest number of severe mental disorder patients with a prevalence rate of 1 percent of the number of population.” These figures confuse director Elly Rosila Wijaya of the NTB Mental Hospital: “The problem is where are they now and why have only a small portion of them [been] admitted to the NTB Mental Hospital?” It makes one wonder indeed.
Then we stumble on the inevitable question why the numbers are so high in this province. Well, here we go: “… if we notice from the data that more than 70 percent of the patients are from poor backgrounds, we assume that the main factor is economic hardship.” And in the next line: “… the huge number of returning migrant workers, mostly women, suffering from mental distress.”
If we look at the number of migrant workers Indonesia sends out from NTB, especially from Lombok, and if we know how badly many of them are treated overseas, we can add one and one together without the above mudflow of ill-sorted statistics.
Frans Huneker
Tegallantang, Bali
| 
|
|
|
|
|
|
|