50 percent of mental patients abandoned by own families
50 percent of mental patients abandoned by own families
M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The city's mental institutions are crowded with patients who are
ready for release but whose families have refused to take them
home.
The head of the medical services division at the Soeharto
Herjan mental institution in Grogol, West Jakarta, R. Surya
Widya, said 50 percent of the institution's patients were not
taken home by their families when they were ready for release.
In some of the city's other hospitals, the number was about 30
percent.
According to the records of the state-owned Grogol
institution, of 143 patients 70 have long been ready for release
but have nowhere to go. As a result, the three main dormitories
of the institution are overcrowded.
In Jakarta, there are four other major mental institutions:
Duren Sawit, Dharma Santi, Dharma Wangsa and Dharma Jaya. Each is
home to about 50 patients.
Surya said there had been an increase in the number of people
hospitalized because of mental illness in the wake of the
economic crisis, mostly because people could not afford
medication.
"There is no direct link between the protracted economic
crisis and the outbreak of mental illness. However, the economic
hardships prevent patients from getting medication," he said.
He would not estimate how many Jakartans were suffering from
mental illness, but he said there had been a slight increase in
the number of mental patients in the hospital.
Surya told The Jakarta Post earlier this week that in most
cases of abandonment, the reason was an unwillingness on the part
of the patient's family to care for them.
"Like any other disease, mental illness requires meticulous
care so that the patients can have a smooth transition into
normal life," he said.
He also said families were sometimes unable to pay for the
medicine required by their loved ones.
Surya said the difficulty in discharging patients had added to
the woes of the cash-strapped Grogol institution.
"You should know that patients here receive services free of
charge. Therefore, the hospital has to pay for the medication and
living costs," he said.
Fortunately for the hospital, it recently received money from
the government as compensation for the recent fuel price hike.
Annually, the hospital spends about Rp 2 billion (US$220,000)
to pay the living costs of patients.
Patients who cannot be released because they have no place to
go, Surya added, also prevent the institution from treating
others in need of help.
"A mental institution is not an orphanage where people can
dump family members they don't want around," he said.
Surya said his institution was calling families of patients
and asking them to bring their loved ones home, assuring them
that it would provide any necessary medicine for free.
"With enough care and medication, mental illness, like any
other disease, can be cured," he said.
In a bid to resolve this problem, the hospital has begun to
cooperate with the city's Social Welfare Agency.
"The agency will arrange employment and shelter for the
patients," Surya told the Post.