The Invisible People: The Big Issue 18 March 2011

“A 2007 study by the Medical research Council revealed that one in six South Africans struggle with a mental disorder.  many of us have experienced bouts of mild depression and anxiety in our own lives, but living with severe mental illness requires great courage and the road to recovery is often long and hard”- Jamie Elkon

Extract from the BIG ISSUES latest piece on Mental Illness:

‘The department of healths 2010 health plan saw psychiatric care being decentralised, resulting in outpatient facilities being moved from hospitals such as Valkenberg into community day hospitals seldom equipped to deal with patients with mental illnesses.  Many of the psychiatrically ill have since slipped through the cracks in the system and now walk the streets as the invisible people.  You see some walking the verge of highways, muttering and gesticulating to themselves, while others crouch on the pavements outside busy eateries, unseen by the well heeled patrons.

 

The invisible are not ghosts of souls passed over, they are people who live among us, with beating hearts and blood flowing through their veins, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, each with a unique deep story to be told’- Jamie Elkon