Mentally ill patients to get new houses

LIMPOPO – MASANA Social Development and Skills commenced with the construction of two RDP standard houses in the Rambuda area near Thohoyandou last Thursday for people who are mentally ill.

Masana CEO, Ntsundeni Muladi, said this was their way of trying to restore confidence in these mentally ill people as there seemed to be a stigma attached to such people.

“We mandated the community to help us identify the poorest of the poor among the mentally ill in their villages. They submitted the names of Thilivhali Rebecca Nemalale from Dzimauli-Muledane village and Oscar Magedane from Manenzhe village. Construction is underway and each house will cost R85 000. Beneficiaries will get two bedrooms, kitchen, and a bathroom with toilet,” Muladi said, adding that the houses should be completed by October.

He explained that the people building the houses were students who were doing a three-year artisan course.

Since Masana had started operating in 2013, they had built a house for an elderly person in Rabali village, followed by a house in Tshiozwi for some orphans and another house in Tshirolwe, Muladi said.

One of the new beneficiaries, Nemalale, said she had spent seven years living in a shabby mud hut with her 15-year-old son, Vhulenda Nekhumbe, a gr. 8 learner at Tshiwa nga Matembele Secondary School. “I’m unemployed and rely on a social grant. I am happy that Masana, in partnership with the department of health, has come to my rescue. It’s dangerous to live in a mud hut when it is the rainy season,” Nemalale said.

Health MEC, Dr Phophi Ramathuba said one person in every three South Africans were mentally ill and 75% of them could not get either professional assistance or any other help at all. She said more than 17 million people dealt with depression, substance abuse, anxiety, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. These were the most common diagnoses, according to the Mental Health Federation of South Africa, Ramathuba said.

She said residents of villages as a whole should generate solutions to the current challenges facing the province relating to the treatment of people suffering from a mental illness. “In some cases, people with mental health issues have been found chained up or have been sent to traditional healers,” she commented.

“The department is spending only 4% or R9,3 billion annually of its budget to address mental health. Most of those who experience mental health problems recover fully or are able to live with and manage them, especially if they get help early on. There is a strong social stigma attached to mental ill health and people with mental health problems can experience discrimination in all aspects of their lives,” she said.

“Government will develop and strengthen human capacity for prevention, detection, care treatment and rehabilitation of mental and substances use disorder and build links with traditional and complementary health practitioners,” she concluded.