How can someone own up to her illness or seek help for her affliction when, instead of being cured, she may be cited for being possessed by supernatural forces or having gone insane? [break]Moreover, how accessible is help for psychological patients in a country like Nepal?
Therefore, the situation is dire on two levels: One, our society’s narrow-minded outlook towards psychological illness; and two, the lack of availability and accessibility of mental healthcare-related resources.
Socially, our conservative notions have always led us to believe that to suffer psychologically equates to some mumbo-jumbo about pervasive forces controlling our bodies. Rather than seeking cure from a certified doctor, most of us have preferred to exercise our creativity in coming up with exceptional yet groundless theories of why the patient (or victim) is suffering that I presume even Steven Spielberg would be left nonplussed.
Simply put, not only are we failing to underscore psychological problems as real challenges under the notion of health but we are also failing to understand that these are something that can be cured. Most of us are unaware of or skeptical about the fact that mental disorders are indeed treatable. And God forbid that even when a success story does meet our eyes, we prefer to stigmatize the patient and discriminate against her on the basis of her medical history.
Many cases of mental illnesses exist and that have met with cruelty and injustice rather than with patience and care. For example, most of the mentally ill people are classified as no more than a social problem and many have even been jailed on accounts of being “too dangerous for the society.” Such is the way we handle mental illnesses here, it seems.
If medical options to aid these mental patients were more readily available and accessible, then perhaps it would be easier to make the majority of the society realize that people who suffer from psychological illness should not be shunned. But we have yet to get luck on our side.
A 2006 report on the Mental Health System in Nepal put forth by WHO suggests that less than 1% of all health expenditures are directed to mental health (0.17%) in Nepal. With such little importance being placed on mental health, one wonders how we will ever be able to respond to the silent pleas of thousands of people suffering from mental anomalies, the detriment of millions in the world.
Grimmer still are statistics, like the 2004 survey by the WHO that showed that between 76 to 85% of people with severe mental disorders in low- and middle-income countries receive no treatment at all.
According to an article published by Matrika Devkota in the American Psychological Association last year, Nepal has 0.129 psychiatrists per a population of 100,000 and 0.024 psychologists per the same population, reinforcing the 2004 WHO data. Not at all a cheery discovery.
Every so often, the mental component of health seems to be overlooked. Ask any middle school kid and the chances are that even s/he will be able to tell you that the WHO defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” But what are oftentimes neglected are the “mental” and “social” components of this definition.
Granted, efforts are being put into making mental health problems an acceptable and accessible concept, thanks to organizations like Koshish, Nepal Mental Health Foundation, the Mental Hospital, among others, but we still have to be vigilant and promote mental health on a par with physical health. Until and unless we learn to be broadminded about psychological illnesses and until and unless we devote our resources to this culture, the 20-25% of sufferers, and counting, have a rough and harsh life ahead of them.
The question is: Can we watch as they suffer?
The writer is a student of Political Science at Thammasat University who enjoys exploring life and all that it has to offer.
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