Let’s treat the mentally ill as patients and stop thinking they are criminals

My memories of Maua Primary School revolve around three things. One, was the mean-spirited but loving principal, who would always “motivate” us by saying that even the Paralympics produce winners. The other was soccer. The third was a Mr Theuri.

Mr Theuri, a mentally ill but athletic man in his late 20s, loved to hang outside the school gate where he performed free nude shows for pupils. We cheered him on and got a kick out of it.

Our young minds also deemed it appropriate to stone Mr Theuri and chase him around like a wild dog. Years later, my mother would tell me that he had died of pneumonia. Such is the fate of many mentally ill people in Kenya.

Last week’s launch of President Kenyatta’s mental health initiative and his call on Kenyans to address mental health seriously is spot on. The call brought back memories of those days when I would join other boys to happily hurl rocks at Mr Theuri.

I remembered how Mr Theuri would run for dear life or how he would grab a banana or whatever he could from passers-by.

Adults would beat him up for grabbing a morsel of bread, handcuff him and frogmarch him to the police station, where he would be thrown into the cells with murder suspects and robbers who would continue beating him for no rhyme or reason.

Children and adults alike treated this man like a criminal instead of a patient. None of us reasoned that he grabbed food from people because he was starving. Nobody bothered to understand why he liked to hang around the school gate.

Did he feel safer amongst children? Perhaps. Was he there because he desired education and his sick mind told him that the surest way to get educated would be by hanging around a school?

SUCCUMBED TO REJECTION`

We ostracised Mr Theuri. Like numerous other mentally sick Kenyans, he eventually succumbed to decades of rejection, neglect and physical injuries that could easily have been prevented.

The mental health challenge in Kenya is slowly but surely getting out of control. Both the lawyer who sacrificed his entire family, the Nyeri man who hacked his mother to death and the woman who recently killed her children in Korogocho were mentally ill.

Unethical utterances and public spats among leaders are another indicator that the society is sick and getting sicker. Unless we approach this issue soberly, we will continue losing productive people.

Apart from the emotional toll on the families, mental illness could pose serious national security challenges. In a paper titled, “Managing Public Mental Health: Locally and Globally”, Lisa Burton, a sergeant with the Washington, DC Metropolitan Police, argues that across borders, prisons are disproportionately filled with people suffering from mental disorder.

In the US alone, 16 per cent of the nearly two million prisoners suffer from mental illnesses. In Kenya the situation is equally bad. Mathari Hospital, whose renovation the President has ordered, has a 620-bed capacity, yet it receives 60,000 outpatients annually.

It is logical to assume that majority of these outpatients are released simply because the hospital has nowhere to accommodate them. Once released, such patients become a danger to themselves, relatives and other members of the society.

As the government embarks on a workable mental health strategy, the drafters should prioritise preventive care. Many studies suggest that an increase in mental illness is a reflection of a sick society.

The poorer people become, the more likely they are to sink into depression and eventually, a mental breakdown.

The widening gap between those who have and those who do not, creates a situation where the downtrodden lose their minds. On the other hand, some rich folks overindulge themselves in risky behaviour that could impair their mental stability.

Dealing with mental health is a collective undertaking. Citizens need to be sensitised that these are sick people, not criminals. County governors, including Kwale’s Salim Mvurya, who has had first-hand experience of the wrath of a mentally ill man should rethink the vanity of grandstanding on the provision of health equipment.

Mr Kaberia is an assistant director of international programmes at the University of the District of Columbia, Washington DC