I don’t trust my psychiatrist. She is a lovely woman, expedient and efficient at her job, and she is the only one of the many specialists that I have consulted who has successfully prescribed medication that does its job.
Deinstitutionalisation. It sounds good: taking mentally ill people out of psychiatric institutions and putting them into community homes or back with their families. But the outcome is seldom positive, as Gauteng patients have discovered.
Relatives of mentally ill loved ones protested last week, saying their family members are not doing well since they were discharged from Life Esidimeni’s psychiatric hospitals.
As the fate of almost 2000 mental health patients set to be booted from a state-funded hospital remains unclear, patient families have vowed to take their fight to the steps of the Gauteng Department of Health.
These 18-page guidelines list facility requirements for holding mental health patients for 72-hour involuntary assessments as well relevant procedure and guidelines for clinicians.
The Department of Health’s guidelines detail how healthcare workers may use seclusion and physical restraint with mental patients and caution that these actions should be seen as a last resort.
In a country plagued by endemic violence and social inequality, psychologists cannot constrain themselves to the four walls of consulting rooms. To meet the needs of its patients, psychology must rethink its identity and voice in the fight for social justice, writes Garret Barnwell.
For hundreds of murdered South African women, the last face they see is a face they used to love. Almost 60 percent of women murdered annually may die by their partner’s hands but who is counting the women who die by their own hands when violence at home becomes too much, asks Garret Barnwell.
A Northern Cape community has been shocked by the suicide attempt by a 10-year-old boy. Experts say that children who attempt suicide may be calling out for help to deal with anxiety and an inability to cope with certain situations.
Maniini Junior and Senior Primary School pupils are receiving counselling following the shooting death of a classmate who was allegedly shot by a fellow student.
In some corners of South Africa, those living with mental disorders are still tied to trees and denied food by the very people meant to protect them – their families. As mental illness remains shrouded in stigma, real questions remain about where South Africa is in the fight for better mental health
In this British Journal of Psychiatry supplement, the Programme for Improving Mental Health Care (PRIME) outlines district mental health care plans from five low- and middle-income countries.
Elizabeth Mahlangu is living with HIV. When her Daveyton clinic runs out of her antidepressant, it can cost her R110 to refill her prescription at a private pharmacy. All too often, those like Mahlangu suffer in silence, says the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC).
Written by a coalition of civil society organisations and health care providers, the 43-page report details how access to mental health services in rural areas remains limited by the over-centralisation of services, budget and staff shortages, and discrimination.
Mental disorders are the most stigmatized of all health problems. Yet they’re so widespread even our 5-year-olds aren't doing well, and our health system pays peanuts to address them.
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