New approach needed to break the stigma of mental illness

‘SA’s sick state of mental health” (July 6) refers. Mental health has always been treated as the stepchild of the healthcare system throughout the world.

Dr Paul Appelbaum, a psychiatrist and legal expert on mental health from the University of Columbia, said: “There is really no mental health system in the US.” If that is the situation in an advanced country like the US, then it is not hard to guess what the situation is in Africa, where mental health disorders are often blamed on witchcraft.

Recently, I referred a young teenager who had tried to hang himself to the local psychiatric hospital for urgent admission and observation. I was immediately called by a psychiatrist and given a lecture that I should have sent the child to the day hospital because, in her opinion, he did not look seriously unwell.

According to the World Health Organisation, mental health is the thirdhighest global burden of disease and by 2030 it will rank number one. Depression seems to be the most common mental illness, because it can be precipitated by a variety of factors such as severe disappointments, retrenchment, loss of homes, divorce, family abuse, debt, severe illnesses and loneliness.

Health departments throughout the world are cognisant of the crisis in mental healthcare, but seem trapped by a lack of ideas about how to address it. They will have to look at alternative ways of tackling the problem if we wish to decrease the 30 million deaths annually through suicide. An affordable option would be to use the services of primary-care physicians and lay counsellors. In Uganda, interpersonal psychotherapy groups yielded excellent results to help people to identify and cope with mental illness.

The Department of Health should support NGOs like the Cape Mental Health Society and the South African Depression and Anxiety Group to get to the masses, who have zero chance of being diagnosed or treated. We need to embark on large-scale campaigns to break the stigma of mental illness. Depression should be included in the list of prescribed minimum benefits provided by medical aids, because often patients cannot afford treatment even if they have medical aid.

Throwing money and medication at the problem won’t solve it if we do not make an earnest effort to address issues such as unemployment, family violence, drug addiction and crime. Our failure to address the problem will cost us dearly through economic loss owing to poor performance by untreated mentally ill workers. — Dr EV Rapiti, Mitchells Plain

Atheists just can’t add it up

I BECAME an atheist because I could clearly see a disjunction between what people say and teach about religion and what actually is. For instance, a man hurts his foot and prays to his god to heal it in time to be able to go to work the next day. He wakes up pain-free and posts how powerful his lord is and gives thanks. At the same time, a two-year-old is raped and strangled to death not far from where the foot healing took place.

How do the faithful figure this conundrum? Far from trying to be clever, most atheists I know are deeply concerned about humanity and can find no way to reconcile these examples to justify the presence of an omnipotent and loving god.

It is inevitable that the human race will evolve and discard the delusion of gods. This may or may not take thousands of years. In the interim, though, thousands — if not millions — will die in the name of one religion or another. And we tiny but ever growing band of atheists will never go away. — Tony Cox, by e-mail

What about trophy hunters?

? “ROTTING animals found during raid on ANC leader’s farm” (July 6) refers.

I have a recommendation for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. It should begin a clampdown on trophy hunting, a sport so popular in the white community. There is a lot of cruelty involved there about which the SPCA has been thunderous in its silence. Second, it should have long clamped down on fishing, especially as a sport.

We cannot forget that the courts were approached by animal rights groups in South Africa to abolish the Zulu culture of killing a bull with bare hands during the ukweshwana (first fruits) ceremony. Such groups should focus across all races if they want us to take them seriously. — Kwazi Mthembu, Soweto

We welcome new UCT policy

“RIPPING the veil off UCT’s whiter shades of pale” (July 6) refers. As a family, we welcome the new admissions policies of the universities of Cape Town and the Witwatersrand because, although we understand there is a dire need to address the inequalities of the past, there is also a need to recognise the children who work very hard to get into university.

Our son, who is white, is writing matric and has wanted nothing more than to be a doctor since his early teens. He has taken school books on holiday since Grade 10. He spends most nights, weekends and school holidays studying. He hands in all his assignments on time, and makes sure he understands the work before leaving the class. But while he’s sitting at his desk in his bedroom every weekend studying, his classmates are out partying. And when he asks some of the black kids, who he knows to have similar aspirations, how they can be out on the razzle instead of studying, they say they don’t need to work quite as hard because they’ll probably get in ahead of him with their 60% averages over his 95%. — Laurel, by e-mail

What took them so long?

“BATTLE for desks as MEC snubs court” (July 6) refers. Flagstaff and Ntabankulu are small rural towns in the Eastern Cape. Redhill Junior Secondary and Mnceba Senior Secondary schools are in these towns. The governing bodies of these schools have a legislated membership of, first, the parent section, and then the teachers. The school year starts midJanuary, meaning Redhill Junior, with 970 learners, had classroom furniture for 500 learners and therefore, from mid-January to the winter break, 470 learners sat on cement blocks during their lessons.

It would be educative to hear how the sections of the school governing bodies engaged their constituencies vis-à-vis this scenario persisting for four months and two weeks, which includes the writing of mid-year examinations and tests. Is the problem related to their capacities, or are the municipalities a factor in this sad scenario? — Monde Ndandani, Dutywa

No chance of DA-COPE merger

“COPE, DA in ‘co-operation’ talks” (June 29) refers. The context of The Congress of the People’s engagement with Mmusi Maimane of the DA is as follows: COPE, immediately after the elections, held a congress national committee meeting.

Following that, it issued a declaration reiterating its ongoing commitment to social democracy. By this act, our party made its intentions known to anybody who shares our views to engage in open discourse with us. But we had engaged in discussions with opposition parties even before the election campaign.

In the discussions we resumed after the elections, we shared our views with the new parliamentary leader of the DA. We also listened to his party’s views on the situation subsequent to the election. Nothing has changed since then and we have not mutated in any way either.

The paramount point is that there was no mandate given to those of us at the reported meeting to negotiate a merger and we did not do anything of the sort. — Mosiuoa Lekota, COPE

No cricket, no SABC

‘SABC gives cricket audience the finger” (July 6). No more broadcasts, no more tuning in, no more listening to the SABC. No more paying my SABC subscription. Goodbye to the SABC.— MBD, Brakpan