Kenya : Mentally Ill, Alone and Forgotten

A woman slowly and silently stretches her skinny arm through the closed lattice gate. A few steps further on, a man is trying to push his head through the bars of a window, screaming in a drawn-out, hoarse cry. Gaunt figures lie about on the cement floors of two courtyards, each measuring roughly eight-meters (26-feet) square. The men are on one side, the women on the other. Some of them rise up from the ground, hoping to touch the visitor – or speak with him.

Everything about the place is reminiscent of a badly run-down prison: the bars, the metal beds, a room smelling strongly of excrement. But this is not a correctional facility. Rather, it is a provincial hospital – and it is the only hospital in Nakuru, the large city in western Kenya, that has a psychiatric ward.

"Many families drop off relatives here and then never come back," says the nurse who is leading the visitor on a tour and who does not wish to be identified by name. She points to a woman lying listlessly on the ground and says: "She is from Rwanda and has been here for 10 years." The ward primarily treats psychosis cases and acute depression using medication and sometimes electroconvulsive therapy. Apart from the nurse, the only other non-patient present is a burly security guard. The doctor, the nurse says, has no time at the moment. There is just one doctor on staff for the facility's more than 40 long-term patients, the nurse says, and she is also responsible for the 200 walk-ins each day.

Leave a Comment