As per the data provided by the Mental Hospital, Lagankhel, it treated 26 thousand 822 patients in fiscal year 2010/11, 28 thousand 22 patients in fiscal year 2011/12 and 28 thousand 722 patients in fiscal year 2012/13. [break]
These figures show that more and more mental patients are coming to the hospital for treatment, indicating to an increase in the number of such patients across the country.
Chief of the Hospital Administration, Khagendra Bhandari, provided this data which he has maintained in a spiral diary since the establishment of the hospital 30 years ago.
Bhandari says that although the number of patients is increasing every year at the country´s only such facility, the hospital is facing financial crunch as the government has not allocated adequate budget for its management.
According to Baldev Gautam, Chief of the Narcotics Control Programme at the Ministry of Home Affairs, youths are mentally disturbed when they get trapped in the vicious drug habit due to unemployment and due to lack of family supervision while women and the elderly get mentally disturbed due to mental stress and family tension.
Gautam said the number of people suffering from mental diseases for the sole reason of drug abuse is over 96,000.
A survey carried out by the World Health Organization (WHO) shows that 15 per cent of the country´s population suffers one or the other kind of mental problem which means that four million people in the country are suffering from mental disease.
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