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300 mentally-ill still shackled in Bali: NGO
A local NGO has divulged that as many as 300 mentally-ill people are still confined with wooden stocks by their families across the island and is urging the provincial administration to design a humane and comprehensive approach in dealing with mentally-ill persons
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local NGO has divulged that as many as 300 mentally-ill people are still confined with wooden stocks by their families across the island and is urging the provincial administration to design a humane and comprehensive approach in dealing with mentally-ill persons.
The Suryani Institute for Mental Health said that the mentally-ill persons have yet to get proper treatment. As of last year, the NGO has only been able to help 60 people confined with wooden stocks in Karang asem and Buleleng.
“We have limited budget, so we have only been able to reach 60 of the 300 people throughout Bali,” said Tjokorda Bagus Jaya Lesmana, the NGO’s secretary, earlier this week.
The 60 people have been confined with wooden stocks for years. Some have been chained for 30 years. Sixty percent of them are in their productive ages of between 20 to 45 years old.
Most of them did not get proper treatment since the early phases of their mental disorders, so their
families decided to confine them with stocks since they started to cause disturbances in the neighborhoods.
He said that treatment efforts had been hampered by differences in approaches pursued by the NGO and the local administration.
“We urge for the establishment of a support group to help releasing them, and urge that they should be treated properly at home, with the help of their families and community leaders, while the administration prefers to bring them to the hospital for mentally-ill people.”
He added that some of the mentally-ill have been released from the stocks, but they were locked up in a separate place near the houses of their families.
“Free from the stocks but ending up being locked in a room — this is just the same. This is also not good for them. It takes involvement of their families and the surrounding community to help recovering the mentally-ill patients. Community health centers should also provide treatment for these people.”
According to the NGO, there are at least 7,000 people in Bali suffering from mental illness but
most of them are being neglected, causing worse impacts, including suicide.
It also revealed that around 22 percent of suicide cases on the island are committed by older people, mostly in Karangasem.
Anak Ayu Sri Wahyuni, a doctor at the clinic for mental health in Sanglah Hospital, Denpasar, said that the clinic handles many patients that have attempted suicide because they were mentally ill.
“People neglected them and had only been alarmed when the persons have attempted suicide,”
she said.
In 2011, there were 115 cases of suicide attempt brought to the clinic, 70 percent of which are adult women having various problems, such as broken hearts and extra-marital affairs.
“We have not received patients who were confined with stocks, because they were usually brought to the Bangli Mental Hospital.”
