{"id":362914,"date":"2017-10-19T12:32:13","date_gmt":"2017-10-19T12:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=362914"},"modified":"2017-10-19T12:32:13","modified_gmt":"2017-10-19T12:32:13","slug":"the-stigma-and-discrimination-of-mental-illness-article","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/10\/the-stigma-and-discrimination-of-mental-illness-article\/","title":{"rendered":"The stigma and discrimination of mental illness [Article]"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/u>\u201c37-year-old Kofi Mensah lives in a compound house with his wife and 2 children. One night he was heard shouting on top of his voice, banging on doors, praying and commanding things to happen and even began stripping himself naked. Some neighbours rushed around and helped his wife convey him to the psychiatric hospital. A month and a half later he was discharged home. However, other tenants started looking down on him and his family; they would not allow their children to play with his, would not return his greetings and they quickly rushed into their rooms when he is seen from afar.”<\/p>\n

Similar stories can be told of people who have suffered such discrimination and stigmatisation either at work or home through no fault of theirs<\/p>\n

Stigma: Greek origin , refers to bodily sign or mark which signals something unusual or bad about a person (cuts\/burns). It indicates that a person is a slave, traitor or a criminal and is to be avoided especially in public places.<\/em><\/p>\n

Goffman E. (Stigma. 1963) \u2013 stigma occurs when an individual is disqualified from full social acceptance because of possession of an attribute that is deeply discrediting.<\/em><\/p>\n

To discriminate according to the Cambridge advanced learner\u2019s dictionary is to treat a person or particular group of people differently, especially in a worse way from the way in which you treat other people, because of their skin colour, sex, religion etc. \u00a0(in this case because of their health status)<\/em><\/p>\n

Stigma is the biggest obstacle to recovery, treatment and societal acceptance for people living with mental illness. Stigma and discrimination against those living with mental illness is widespread and reaches into our educational institutions, workplaces, homes, health care centres, in the media and even in the churches \/mosques. It causes shame, prejudice, apathy, and hopelessness and prevents over half of those living with mental illness from seeking treatment.<\/p>\n

Discrimination at work or school, bullying, physical violence or harassments, low self-esteem, tagging or labelling as \u201cabodam,\u00a0 seke\u201d, madman\u201d, health insurance not adequately covering mental illness are ways by which people are stigmatized. Stigma does not stop at the persons who are suffering from a stigmatized illness. Their immediate and even remote families often experience significant social disadvantages and if care is not taken apathy sets in and the family leaves the patient to his own fate bringing about institutionalization. On some wards visited at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital a few patients had been abandoned by their families after their discharge from the hospital possibly due to fear of stigmatisation by society against such individuals and families. Repatriation by the social welfare department then becomes the only alternative. People are stigmatised and discriminated because;<\/p>\n