Category: News

Health care system can be defined as comprising all the organizations, institutions and resources that are directed to producing health action. Improving health means to improve people’s physical, social and mental well being. Unfortunately this condition is far from being happening in Bali, the island with rain of dollars and many expatriates try to dig their fortune and use for their own good.

“If disease is an expression of individual life under unfavoralbe condition, then what happening here in Bali is indicative of mass ignorance from government and society in creating better mental health situation”, said Professor Suzanne Wells from Edison State Collage, Florida, USA during her visit to community with Professor Luh Ketut Suryani as the founder and director of Suryani Institute. As Professor Wells travels more than 36 hours from convinient country, she is not in Kansas anymore when seeing the reality of the island of Gods.

 

 

“The goodness of a health care system is measured by the output indicators of the various fields of action or all health action taken together, but not by seperating someone health from their physical and mental status” add Professor Wells full with despair. When most tourist that come to Bali try to get benefit from their own good, none of them willing to step in helping the unfortunate people with mental disorders and left untreated in community.  

LCI as one of French television channel works together with indoXPLORE an Indonesian television production company that provides full-scale production support to international broadcasters, documentary filmmakers and corporate clients in Indonesia and beyond tried to expose the mental health situation in the island of God. As the mental health situation in Bali is still unchange, the media pressure try to bring the difference.

“We feel the government act inhumane in this mental health situation by not providing any information and services to their people”, said Anne Delaistre after seeing the reality of inhumane condition of mental ill people in Bali. They were left without any treatment as the Bali’s government focus only on mental institution way of treatment. People that can not come to any health center never consider as patients and just abandon in community without any care.

 

 

 

“Let our visual makes the difference and spread the news to other if your government trying to play blind and deaf”, add Alex Ginting during his time capturing the darkside of Bali’s glamour tourism. The island has the most five stars hotel in the nation of Indonesia, but none of the hotel willing to set aside their profit for the people with mental disorder that left untreated in the community. “It’s a shame but that’s the reality that we face day to day”, said Professor Luh Ketut Suryani with her bitterness inside.

There are nearly 54 million people around the world with severe mental disorders such as schizophrenia. People living in developing countries are disproportionately affected. Mental disorders are increasingly prevalent in developing countries, the consequence of persistent poverty-driven conditions, the demographic transition, conflicts in fragile states and natural disasters. At the same time, more than 50% of developing countries do not provide any care for persons with mental disorders in the community.

“Although community mental health services are likely to have less possibilities for neglect and violations of human rights, which are too often encountered in mental hospitals, but the priority of our government and the stigma among mental health provider still challenging”, said Professor Luh Ketut Suryani as she keeps her works in the community since 2006 and finding no significant helps from government and other funding bodies. For those reasons she tries to challange Rendang public health center in Karangasem to provide a community mental health service in their area.

 

 

 

The call for community mental health services is especially timely since, in spite of a clear message from WHO in 2001, only a few countries have made adequate progress in this area. Also, in many countries, closing of mental hospitals is not accompanied by the development of community services, leaving a service vacuum. The immediate challenge for low income countries is to use primary health care settings, particularly through community approaches that use low-cost, holistic, culturally sensitive and community-based strategies, a development of a mental health model can be achieved that offers a fair and effective service to the population as what the institute has been trying to work in this matter.