Despite accusations of abuse and neglect, a spokesperson of a Buddhist-run psychiatric ward in Kaohsiung County says the center is far from being the "black jail" that lawmakers and the local press have made it out to be.
"I never thought that after we took such good care of them, they would turn around and do this to us," said Lungfatang's (龍發堂) Master Hsinhsien (新賢法師), referring to five patients who recently ran away from the facility.
Concern over conditions at Lungfatang -- home to over 600 psychiatric patients -- was pricked last Friday when DPP lawmaker Yu Jan-daw (余政道), four other lawmakers and five patients who had run away, held a press conference.
The five patients, who said they had risked their lives to escape, alleged that while at Lungfatang they had regularly been stripped and tied to beds -- with iron chains in some cases -- and left to urinate without any help.
Others were beaten with bamboo sticks on the soles of their feet by disciples at the temple, they said.
Hsinhsien, who now runs the temple -- having taken over for its founder, Master Kai Feng (釋開豐) -- said that she, along with the other 19 disciples who run Lungfatang, do not have the energy to implement such iron-fisted control.
"There are so many people here, how could I beat them all?" she said. "How could I use punishment to control them?"
"Patients beat each other up, but not the disciples," said one volunteer worker.
One patient who had been at the center for 10 years also agreed, saying that patients were the greatest source of conflict, not the disciples.
"As long as you don't make any trouble with the other patients, you'll be fine," he said.
However, while the ability to teach control is the source of Lungfatang's public success -- allowing psychiatric patients to learn how to play musical instruments, and even eventually travel abroad to perform -- it is also a great source of controversy.
Most patients at Lungfatang spend their days at the temple's fly-infested chicken farm -- which raises one million chickens -- helping collect eggs and feed chickens, as well as turning excrement into fertilizer.
While questions have been raised over the use of mental patients' labor -- the patients are unpaid -- the use of "chains of compassion," as Lungfatang calls them, to "teach control" to the mentally ill has been strongly criticized.
During a visit to the chicken farm, Hsinhsien stood next to two shorn patients to explain how the chain helps teach control.
"This is not some type of abuse," she said, pointing to a middle-aged women, surnamed Lin, who stood alert and chained to a pudgy younger woman. The younger woman stood fidgeting at the end of the three-foot chain, her eyes darting up for quick glances, her head bowed and shoulders slouched.
"The more stable patient is leading the other one, who's stupid," Hsinhsien said. When patients learn control they are then given the opportunity to escort others, she added.
For many patients Lungfatang is the last resort, Hsinhsien said.
Some patients arrive after years of moving in and out of government asylums, when police are unable to locate their family members or even when convicts cannot be handled in prison, she said.
Hsinhsien said that the use of "free labor" is actually a necessity, because the government will not support the temple and many of the families of patients are unable to donate very much money.
The patients who escaped and local press have said that donations of up to NT$2.5 million are required before families can leave their children at the temple.
Hsinhsien says the patients are really to blame, adding that such behavior is typical of the five who escaped. She said the patients had previously been heavy drug addicts and have violent tendencies.
The five escapees have even threatened their parents, who originally were going to hold a press conference on Monday to express their support of the temple, Hsinhsien said.
"Previously, no one could bring them under control, so naturally they don't like it here and looked for any opportunity to run away," she said.
The patients who spoke out could not be reached yesterday. Yu's office said their lives were now in danger and that they had gone into hiding.
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