More focus on mental illness

THE recent article highlighting the sad plight of the mentally ill in Indonesia, “Languishing in shackles” (The Star, March 22), highlighted the urgent need to address the plight in Malaysia of not only the mentally ill at home but also the large population of mentally ill in hospitals at Permai and Hulu Kinta. The oft-repeated blame put on stigma by the public as an important part of the treatment of the mentally ill unfortunately does not tell the whole story.

Stigma is not limited to mental illnesses. In the not-too-distant past – just 60 years or so ago – leprosy and tuberculosis (TB) were dreaded diseases stigmatised the world over for centuries with forbidding “asylums” situated outside towns along with mental asylums, presumably out of sight and out of the minds of the public