By
John Mulingwa
Picture painted by Luis Marcussen better know as the artist Ovartaci, who was hospitalised for 56 years at the psychiatric hospital in Risskov, which was the first psychiatric hospitals in Denmark (1852). The hospitals founders believed that patients should be allowed to express the selves through art - a tradition which is still on going at Risskov Psychiatric Hospital today.
Picture taken by John Mulingwa at Psychiatric Museum, Ovartaci, Risskov Århus
As a 27 year old youth leader and human rights activist from Kenya, I have learnt that the Kenyan welfare system for the people with psychiatric problems is still far much behind and in a sorry and miserable state as compared to the Danish system. Psychiatric patients are isolated and in many cases they are in a prison like situation. Psychiatric problems are not viewed as an illness but as a spell that occurs due to witchcraft. In the Kenyan society stereotype beliefs such as witchcraft are adopted towards psychiatric patients because of lack of knowledge and the advice they get from the traditional healers .Culturally it is seen as curse and punishment for a wrong doing either by the person or their relatives.
Our health care system has failed to deliver and carter for people with psychiatric problems. This is mainly a result of the fact there has been an exodus of doctors to Europe in search for better salaries and living conditions and no research has been conducted so far to assess the situation. Statistics in Kenya show that many young people suffer from depression and drugs and substance abuse which can be dealt with through counselling and recreational programmes. Upon talking to one psychiatric professor (Raben Rosenberg), from the department of Psychiatry in Risskov (Aarhus) I learnt that Denmark has the capacity to treat patients with the use of advanced technology such as computer data capturing and the use of brain scanning machines. One wonders why the Danes suffer from psychiatric problem in a welfare system that is well organised.
The hospital is in an impressive status as witnessed by the happy and creative patients. The Kenyan situation has been worsened by the fact that information dissemination is poor and has a propaganda agenda. We only have one psychiatric hospital in the capital city (Nairobi) which makes it inaccessible by the patients. I would encourage the Danish people to at least have an exchange programme with the Kenyan doctors and health care workers on how to improve our health care system and it will be an important initiative since we have a new constitution that guarantees right to health care to all the citizens.