Families cautioned against chaining mentally ill relatives

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Leaders in Ankole sub-region are disturbed by the continued confinement of mentally challenged persons. Some of them are chained within their houses, around the homesteads or sometimes dumped in Churches, a practice witnessed in the districts of Ntungamo, Mbarara, Rwampara, Ibanda and Bushenyi.

A number of Pentecostal churches are hosting mentally ill people who are taken there in the search of divine intervention and are abandoned there by relatives who believe that their condition is a result of witchcraft.

Jackeline Kirabo, a psychiatrist enrolled nurse at Bushenyi health centre IV says that many people tend to isolate and neglect mentally ill people instead of taking them to health facilities where they can receive recommended care and support.

Kirabo says that most of the cases of mental illness result from Alcohol, drug abuse and frustration.

Bushenyi District Health Inspector Gregory Tushabe says locals need to ne sensitized to understand that people with mental illness can fully recover if supported through mental facilities as opposite to chaining them and abandoning them in shrines.

Apollo Kakonge, the Executive Director of West Ankole Civil Society Forum says that there is an absence of sensitization in regard to the management of persons with mental illnesses. He says a change in perspective will save the health and future of those being held on chains and treated as outcasts.

Mbarara District Health Officer Dr Peter Sebutinde says that the management of persons with mental illness is a serious challenge and at times triggers violence and suicide. Sebutinde says that the district leadership has embarked on sensitization of locals in the area to ensure that all those with mentally ill persons are supported to seek medical treatment.

Ntungamo District Probation Officer Benon Mugume says that some of the cases especially those arising from frustration among couples may end up with disastrous consequences.

Mugume says that counselling services have been extended to communities to get rid of the practice of chaining mentally ill persons.

Ntungamo District Health Educator Nyete Japheth says that the practice of keeping mentally ill persons frustrates them and makes them feel rejected by their loved ones.

A teacher at one of the schools in Mbarara district who suffered from a mental illness for three years, says that he went through a challenging situation when he was chained by relatives until his workmates came to his rescue and referred him to Butabika Hospital for treatment.

He, however, says that despite recovering, people in his home area still segregate him saying he is not sane.

The discussion came up, barely a week after a mentally challenged woman identified as Primah Aine, a resident of Surveyor cell in Mbarara municipality dumped her 9-months-old niece in a pit latrine leading to his death. A month before, another woman hacked seven members of her family to death, in Kashari County.

The woman, identified as Lydia Kyomuhangi reportedly lured six of her grandchildren with soda and cake and locked them inside a family Kitchen, where she used a machete to hack them to death, one by one.  She also killed her daughter Annet Kyomugisha, who had earlier on been chained in the bedroom after developing a mental illness. She was later killed by a mob.

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URN