» 10/11/2011 15:14 SRI LANKA Kite festival for Sri Lanka’s mental patients by Melani Manel Perera Coloured balloons, an art exhibit and a silent march mark World Mental Health Day. The goal is to raise awareness about the plight of mental patients, who are often stigmatised. Some 500 patients, doctors, nurses, volunteers, university students and families with children were present at the event.
Colombo (AsiaNews) – Parents, grandparents and children crowded yesterday Galle Face Green, on Colombo’s waterfront, their balloons and kites adding colour to the sky. They came to mark the fourth World Mental Health Day. Organised by Sri Lanka’s National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), this year’s topic was ‘Greater Push – investing in Mental Health’, and included a ‘kite festival’ that brought together people living with mental illness, doctors, nurses, volunteers and university students. About 500 people, men and women, made the kites for the occasion. The gathering ended in a silent march to Vihara Maha Devi Park.
In Sri Lanka, people with mental problems are often relegated to the margins of society and receive little or no treatment. This year, the NIMH opened its doors to highlight their plight through arts, horticultural and handicraft exhibits that included objects made by patients. The goal was to raise awareness in the public and among political leaders of the need to invest in mental health.
“In Sri Lanka, mental health is a major issue or a problem,” said Dr Firdosi Rustom Mehta, representative of the World Health Organisation in Sri Lanka. “A lot of good work goes on in various areas, creating resources for people, providing curative, preventive and rehabilitation services”. This includes “a community model that can be used in the north, the east, the south, Colombo and other places.”
“We are working very closely with the National Institute of Mental Health and the Ministry of Health,” Dr Mehta explained. “We have other ongoing projects. Thus, we are happy about what Sri lanka is doing for mental health.” In fact, “it stands as a model for South Asia on how to address the problem. Much more remains to be done, but Sri Lanka is on the right path.”
For Punnya Perera, a psychiatric social worker at the NIMH, “mental illnesses are caused by chemical changes and illnesses like diabetes, high blood pressure or myocardial infarction.” Speaking to AsiaNews, she said, “people who become mentally ill don’t realise it. We should treat them like any other patient and they should enjoy the same privileges that other patients enjoy in society”.
For the patients who took part in yesterday’s event, it was a happy moment, a break in their routine. Most of them are staying at the Angoda branch of the NIMH. Founded in 1925, the latter is home to 950 men and women.
In addition to care and treatment, the Institute helps successful patients reintegrate society. For example, a 27-year-old man who came to the facility in 2008, now works at the institute as a cleaner for 400 rupees a day (US$ 3.5). A 43-year-old woman, who arrived in 1999 is now earning 7,500 rupees (US$ 70) a month working at a paper factory that employs 12 other women, also HIMH patients.
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