TheJakartaPost

Please Update your browser

Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.

Jakarta Post

Chained, forsaken in East Nusa Tenggara

Cruel to the extreme: Aleksius Dugis, 31, a man with mental illness, has been shackled for 10 years in a rickety shelter near the kitchen of his parents’ house in Zola village, Kota Komba district, East Manggarai regency, East Nusa Tenggara, on Sunday

Markus Makur (The Jakarta Post)
East Manggarai
Fri, February 15, 2019

Share This Article

Change Size

Chained, forsaken in East Nusa Tenggara

C

ruel to the extreme: Aleksius Dugis, 31, a man with mental illness, has been shackled for 10 years in a rickety shelter near the kitchen of his parents’ house in Zola village, Kota Komba district, East Manggarai regency, East Nusa Tenggara, on Sunday.(JP/Markus Makur)

It has been almost five years since the country banned shackling for people with mental illness, but the practice continues.

In East Manggarai, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), where there are almost no psychiatric institutions to treat the mentally ill, shackling is common in many villages.

Aleksius Dugis, 31, of Zola village in Kota Komba district, has been chained by his own family for 10 years and dehumanized.

They place him in an open hut located next to the family house’s kitchen, naked, long-haired and not bathed.

When a group of volunteers visited him recently, he was shackled by his right leg, dirty and abandoned. The board on which he sat and slept was severely damaged.

When he first showed signs of mental illness back in 2009, he often went berserk, got angry and even disturbed villagers. This forced the family to shackle him for the sake of people’s safety and comfort.

“We shackle his right and left legs alternately,” his mother Kornelia Daghe told The Jakarta Post.

She said since her husband Mikael Pandu died, she was no longer capable of taking care of his son. She still gives him food and drink routinely and occasionally bathes him, but her son’s condition is getting worse.

“I hope the East Manggarai administration can do something so he can be free from the shackles,” Kornelia said, adding that he had never taken any medication or received treatment for his illness, although health officers sometimes came to collect data.

Aleksius is not alone. There are many other people with mental illness in NTT who are shackled because of their condition.

Rikardus Non, 31, also from Zola, has been shackled since 2017 at his house. His family was forced to restrain him for the same reasons: his own safety and for the benefit of the community.

“We once went to pray for him, but he has never been healed,” Rikardus’ father Titus Lawur said, adding that his son’s wife left after the mental illness began.

Adelheit Pedho, 58, of Muting village has also been shackled since 2017 because of her mental illness. Her husband Andreas Deja said he had tried to cure his wife but had not yet been successful.

Two others in Maras village have been chained because of mental illness.

Law No. 18/2014 on mental illness has banned shackling and requires health centers at the lowest level, such as Puskesmas (community health centers), to be able to treat the condition.

But this is a tall order as many provinces, regencies and cities still do not have psychiatric hospitals while many Puskesmas are not ready with the service.

Priest Avent Saur, chairman of Kelompok Kasih Insanis (KKI), a group of volunteers that takes care of people with mental illness, said that he and other members of the group made frequent visits to people with a mental illness in Greater Manggarai — which includes Manggarai, East Manggarai and West Manggarai regencies — to make sure they took medicine so that they would recover.

So far the group has found 80 people with a mental illness in Greater Manggarai. It previously recorded 720 people with a mental illness in Ende regency.

KKI recorded that in NTT there were a total of 4,000 people with a mental illness, about 1,200 of whom were being shackled.

The only institution specializing in treating mental illness in the province is Naimata Psychiatric Hospital. “Especially in East Manggarai, no medicine is available for people with a mental illness at its 29 Puskesmas,” Avant said.

The East Manggarai Health Agency’s disease control and prevention division head, Regina Malon, said her office recorded 193 people with a mental illness in the regency, 183 of whom were free and 10 who were still being shackled.

This year her office had planned to provide medication for people with a mental illness in the 29 Puskesmas in East Manggarai. However, the regency had a limited number of physicians and no psychiatrist, she said.

The East Manggarai Legislative Council in 2015-2016 helped 45 people with a mental illness to be treated at Panti Renceng Mose Ruteng at its own initiative, said councilor Leonardus Santosa of the Democratic Party.

“It was the decision of the council based on the people’s wishes,” said Leonardus, adding that the regency administration had never come up with any special budget plan to deal with people with a mental illness in the regency.      

{

Your Opinion Matters

Share your experiences, suggestions, and any issues you've encountered on The Jakarta Post. We're here to listen.

Enter at least 30 characters
0 / 30

Thank You

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. We appreciate your feedback.