People with mental illness have been subjected to stigmatization, while the government’s response to the random killing of a four-year-old girl in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖) on Monday has exacerbated misunderstanding about mental illness, support groups said yesterday.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Li-chan (林麗蟬) and support groups for people with mental illness yesterday called on the government to improve efforts to establish effective community care services rather than emphasizing “social security” and “forced hospitalization” for mentally ill people.
Taipei Life of Heart Association director-general Chin Lin (金林) said people with mental illness need long-term support and treatment for rehabilitation.
She likened living with mental illness to a right-handed person being forced to undertake their daily activities using their left hand.
“It would be hard for you, and this is how the people with mental illness feel. We, with our experiences accumulated since we were born, have formed an automatic system in our brain, but when it is disrupted by a mental illness, that system does not work. However, just like a right-handed person can gradually grow accustomed to using their left hand, practice can help some [patients] regain use of their faculties,” Chin said.
“The problem is that care services are severely fragmented. The more serious a person’s mental illness is, the less services are available to them. At the same time the government [in the wake of recent attacks] is gearing up to identify and incarcerate people with serious mental illnesses, agitating those who might have started to panic about their situation,” Chin said.
Taipei Mental Rehabilitation Association director-general Chen Kuan-pin (陳冠斌) said that the government’s reaction and sensationalist reporting might have caused distress for some people living with mental illness, causing people to return to hospitals.
“The association was established 32 years ago; none of the people we have helped have committed similar attacks. That indicates that those who have not been helped by the system require our attention,” Chen said.
“The resources the government has put into mental heath treatment and community services are highly disproportionate. Community intervention as long-term support is a must for people with mental illness,” he said, adding that he hopes the government’s commitment to more personnel in community care is more than just a slogan.
“Contact with patients for social workers averages four times a year, most of which is done via telephone calls. It is impossible for people to get immediate help when they need it,” Chen said.
Chen also called on the government and the media to take responsibility for social education, by avoiding mislabeling and stigmatizing mental illness.
New Taipei City Mental Rehabilitation Association director-general Liu Li-ju (劉麗茹) said that education about mental illness is lacking and called on the media and the government not to use mental illness as a “scapegoat.”
“The government’s measures should be long-term. Police had for a short time carried submachine guns after the MRT attack in 2014. Was that effective in preventing future random attacks? Apparently not,” Liu said. “What society needs is long-term solutions, not populism.”
Lin Li-chan said many patients lack public support once they leave the medical treatment system and generally family members, who might lack the proper resources or knowledge to take care of mentally ill people, could also succumb to immense pressure.
“The long-term care service policies discussed have so far not included people with mental illness. We hope that the authorities take the long-term care needs of those with mental illness seriously,” she added.
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