Thread: 600,000 Thais Mentally Ill...and Counting...

They could be at your local pub drowning away the sorrows...they could be working in your government offices. Wherever they are, this one percent of the population is not getting the care that they need...

Bangkok's Independent Newspaper

Mentally ill suffer due to limited access to care


By Chularat Saengpassa
The Nation
Published on June 21, 2008


When people first start experiencing the symptoms of a mental disorder, they still have a chance to make a full recovery. However, so many mentally ill patients in Thailand have lost that chance just because they have no access to continued proper treatment.




This problem has persisted even though the Mental Health Act (2008) came into effect more than three months ago.
The Social Security Office (SSO), for example, has yet to provide additional health benefits to insured persons with mental disorders.
If insured persons start to develop symptoms of a mental disorder, they must pay for medical treatment by themselves unless their condition is so acute that they require immediate admission to hospital.
For most other illnesses, the SSO basically offers free treatment.
And even in the case of admission, insured persons can receive free psychiatric treatment for up to 15 days only. If they need to stay in a psychiatric hospital longer than that, they will have to cover the additional cost.
"Many psychiatrists say they really want to help their patients but 15 days of treatment often is not long enough to achieve full recovery," said Dr Ronnachai Kongsakorn of the Faculty of Medicine at Ramathibodi Hospital.
With about 600,000 people, or nearly 1 per cent of the whole population, suffering from mental problems, Ronnachai insists that mental illness poses a major public-health problem to the country.
According to him, policy-makers still lack a profound understanding of mental illness and thus fail to extend fair and proper care to mentally ill people.
Mental Health Department director-general Somchai Chakrabhand said it took time to cure mental disorders and thus some low-income earners just could not afford proper treatment.
Medication needed to treat certain mental illnesses can be prohibitively expensive, costing up to Bt200 a pill.
"When they stop getting treatment, their conditions may get worse, and they become unable to live normally in society," Somchai said.
The high cost of mental disorder hits working people in the social-security scheme even harder than those without regular jobs. While the universal healthcare scheme offers free mental treatment to children, elderly people and the unemployed, the SSO puts a lot of restrictions on those under its scheme when it comes to such treatment.
Most working people join the SSO's social-security scheme. They have to pay monthly contributions.
As of last year, the number of insured people in the social-security scheme was over 9 million. Because of their membership they cannot get free mental treatment if they ever develop symptoms of a disorder.
Chalai Sudsaeng says the social-security scheme's restrictions have hurt her family badly.
"My son was once a career person with a bright future. He never missed his monthly contributions to social security, but when he became mentally ill, he couldn't use any health benefits," the grieving mother said.
She lamented that her son's savings were now gone and his car had been sold, all to pay his medical bills.
"I don't know what my son has done wrong. He paid tax, he paid social-security contributions, but when he fell ill, there was no help from the authorities," she said.
She added that her son's colleagues believed he had broken down because of work-related stress.
Somchai plans to ask the SSO to extend the admission period for mental treatment from 15 days to 30. He has not yet officially submitted the plan to the SSO.
In addition to the limited treatment available under the SSO, there are few psychiatrists and psychiatric facilities available in Thailand.
Sompong Kerdsaeng, who heads the Association for the Mentally Ill, complains that some provinces do not have mental care at all and mentally ill patients or their families must travel hundreds of kilometres to obtain the necessary medicines.
"They have to commute between the hospital and their homes every week or every fortnight," he said.



What's the solution? ***

Well, tell us some thing we dont know

Originally Posted by Told Stool

What's the solution? ***

Suicide

I spotted a lie in the OP right off the bat..................... Bangkok's Independent Newspaper

I like the way they refer to "mental disorder" as though it were one single condition. So, are we talking depression, schizophrenia, Parkinsons, Alzheimer's, anxiety? One percent seems awfully low.

The 600000 Number Is Bollocks, 1 Percent Of Any Population In The World Is Schizophrenic Or Will Be In Their Lifetime, That Leaves All The Other Disorders In Thailand Uncounted.

Does that figure include ting tong bar girls , cos half of them are only kidding

1% does seem awfully low. And I am not having a go at them here.
Thailand has a very high suicide rate and a very high murder rate per capita.

The face thing and the Jai Yen thing tend to make Thais brood when they have a problem. Then you have poverty and a relative lack of access to medical care.
Most of the poor people diagnose themselves and then prescribe their own medications available from the corner Pharmacy. I remember the wife when I first met her coming out of the Pharmacy with a little plastic bag containing about 12 pills of different colour and size. She told me, --"this one is to help me go to sleep, and this one is to help me wake up, and this one is to make me feel good. WTF?

Originally Posted by Panda

1% does seem awfully low. And

you're n ot kidding, more than that voted for the PPP

it is the underside of believing in karma -- thai society thinks paople who are ting tong merit/deserve it. (same with aids, poverty, physiacl disability, etc...)

Originally Posted by obsidian

it is the underside of believing in karma -- thai society thinks paople who are ting tong merit/deserve it. (same with aids, poverty, physiacl disability, etc...)

What about pregnant women?

Originally Posted by Panda

Originally Posted by obsidian

it is the underside of believing in karma -- thai society thinks paople who are ting tong merit/deserve it. (same with aids, poverty, physiacl disability, etc...)

What about pregnant women?

Dope Carriers

600,000 Thais Mentally Ill...

I've yet to meet one who isn't ...

60,000,000 Thais Mentally Ill...

Fixed it... They left off a couple zeros...

only 1% ,the whole nation is not playing with a full deck .
a screw loose seems very common .look at the news over the years

if the pregnancy is unwanted, i would say yes.

Originally Posted by obsidian

if the pregnancy is unwanted, i would say yes.

So should a good Buddhist give up his seat on a bus to a heavily pregnant woman in obvious discomfort at standing? Or should he enquire as to whether the pregnancy was intentional first?

The concept that the underprivileged deserve their lot in life due to sins committed in a past life is just a cop out designed to secure and enhance the social position of the wealthy elite class. Just another hedge against democracy and social justice in a fucked up country.

They could be at your local pub drowning away the sorrows...they could be working in your government offices. Wherever they are, this one percent of the population is not getting the care that they need

They could be dressed in brown and carying loaded guns

Originally Posted by gjbkk

They could be at your local pub drowning away the sorrows...they could be working in your government offices. Wherever they are, this one percent of the population is not getting the care that they need

They could be dressed in brown and carying loaded guns

Or just carrying guns.

they are running the country

Originally Posted by Panda

The concept that the underprivileged deserve their lot in life due to sins committed in a past life is just a cop out designed to secure and enhance the social position of the wealthy elite class. Just another hedge against democracy and social justice in a fucked up country.

i agree. unfortunately the poor buy into the belief as well.

goes directly to the whole notion that he who is most revered in thailand (purposefully obtuse) cannot be wrong or even questioned. why -- because he is who he is based upon previous untold goodness. and the crazy -- well they are utterly disposable and perhaps even evil.

Originally Posted by Panda

The concept that the underprivileged deserve their lot in life due to sins committed in a past life is just a cop out designed to secure and enhance the social position of the wealthy elite class. Just another hedge against democracy and social justice in a fucked up country.

Well put. It also results in a much higher level of self moralization within the society, which is another reason Thailand has many incurable social ills, such as dangerous roads, corruption, endemic drug use and rampant gun crime and incredibly high murder rates.

Originally Posted by obsidian

because he is who he is based upon previous untold goodness.

Yes, they believe he is half-man, half-deity. One foot in this plane of existence, and one in the other World.