The Week’s Nistha Rayamajhi met Devkota to talk about his personal and professional journey.[break]
Keshab Thoker
How did you realize that you had chronic depression in the past?
I was born and brought up in Gorkha. When I was just fifteen years old, I started being in a very low mood. Though it’s normal to be in a bad mood sometimes, something was wrong since I used to feel sad all the time. It was then that I had fallen into chronic bouts of depression. After completing SLC, I went to Pokhara to study forestry. I somehow completed my Intermediate in Science. Even after just waking up, I used to suffer from fatigue, and couldn’t concentrate much and had lost my appetite. I was an extraordinary student but couldn’t perform well due to my health. I wasn’t aware that I had depression until I was 25. I didn’t know it was a disease and couldn’t explain it to my parents.
What were the challenges that you faced?
Physical diseases can be treated with medicines but treatment of those who have mental ailment is very difficult. Since I suffered from chronic depression and was diagnosed late, it was more difficult. On top of that, the medicines were very expensive. The treatment procedure that time was a bit different and there was hardly any communication with the doctor and we used to just follow what he used to say. Those who came to meet me would mostly throw negative comments and no one tried to understand how I actually felt. It was only after treatment that I resumed normal life. So it has been 17 years since I have been on medication.
How did you start your journey with Koshish ?
When I started working and visiting different parts of Nepal, I noticed many mentally ill patients wherever I went. I noticed that many of them were kept isolated in a room while some were out on the streets. We can witness people throwing stones at such people and mistreating them. People even use derogatory term Baula. After nineteen years of study gap, I joined Bachelors’ degree in social work and started collecting funds from people in order to help the mentally ill. I then rented a place at Lagankhel in order to provide relief to the patients who are out on the streets. The organization was later named as Koshish. The first person that I helped was a sixteen-year-old boy I had found on the street. He later got well and even completed his SLC.
How does Koshish work?
We work at two levels, one is to protect those who are suffering from mental health and are deprived of treatments. We also have protection home for women because mentally ill women out on the streets are more vulnerable. Currently we are housing four women and four children in our shelter. One of the achievements of Koshish is that the government was forced to put mental health as one of the priorities. We have rehabilitated more than 100 patients so far. Our place is a transit center and it is a community-based rehabilitation center so that when a person is being treated, he can live normally like others.
What kind of social problems on mental illness exists in the society?
The Nepali law supports that if person’s spouse is suffering from mental illness, one can easily file for divorce. But in our society’s case, if a woman’s husband is suffering from mental illness, she supports and lives with him. But in the husband’s cases, most of them divorce and send her back home. It is not easy for women to re-marry but for men it is comparatively easier. Many women who are sent back home suffer and many even end up on the streets. In Nepal, mental illnesses are still a social stigma and a taboo. Families and society consider such people as outcast and give them the tag of ‘crazy.’ So many suffer in silence and try to hide their agony.
What has been the effort of the government been like so far?
In 1997 the government had formed mental health law and it has been mentioned that within the year 2000, all Nepalis should get a standard mental health service. When I got involved in the campaigns, through the help of an employee at heath ministry, I found the policy in a worn out form in their office which hasn’t been implemented yet. So on world mental day in 2010, I made a photocopy of it and disseminated among people. Until 2010, mental health wasn’t in the priority of Nepal’s mental health plan. It was during 2009 that we started lobbying for making mental health a priority in health issues. So we are now working on long term mental health plans as well.
How do you feel about the award and achievements that you received?
In 2012, I received an email for an invitation to the ceremony of Dr Guslan Award in Belgium. But my travel expenses would be reimbursed only if I won. So I couldn’t go that time. Then in 2013, I got an invitation as a chief guest for the ceremony in Mumbai as I had won the Dr Guslan award. Sometimes you even receive junk mails so I wasn’t sure. But I was ecstatic when I confirmed the news. So I attended and shared my life’s real story. So far with my eight years of work, I have not received any price or felicitation from the Nepal government. I went through low self esteem at one point in my life. But the award has motivated me further. I am the same person but I found more meaning to my life as I feel like I have achieved something.
How is the state of facilities of mental health in the country?
The word mental hospital is still a stigma. What we need is a psychiatric ward and mental health unit in all hospitals. When people say that they are going to mental hospital, people normally judge you. So the word mental hospital itself is not right. There are many hospitals that are not functioning with proper hygiene and enough facilities. The World Health Organization has also said that unmodified Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) should be banned. But it is still practiced in some places though there are alternatives to it like giving anesthesia to patients and conducting muscle relaxation therapy. We need more mental health experts counseling and trained psychiatric nurses.
Do you have any suggestions as to how we can raise more awareness?
A child should be allowed to follow their passion and interests as many parents just burden their children with responsibilities and what they want them to study. We have a rote learning system and not creative kind of education which is why there are many cases of students who have committed suicide after failing their SLC examinations. So we need really to educate such people. What we need is child friendly education where children develop interests without any force. We also need more counseling. Besides that, early signs of depressions need to be predicted so that treatment is provided before it is too late.
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