Month: May 2011

BBC world service program Outlook– an international program that profiles extraordinary personal stories finally feel the need to expose an extraordinary work by Professor Luh Ketut Suryani. The works that the government still refuses to acknowledge the existence of her work or the problems that she tries to solve. She estimates that over 7000 people in Bali suffer from serious chronic mental illnesses, but are not reported (and naturally not treated). For various reasons, financial, social, political, educational, or simply shame, their families have been reluctant to seek help, while the few who did, never received any. Her survey-team encountered numerous cases  where people were being locked in or in chains for several years (in some cases over a decade), in conditions that would have been considered inhumane even for livestock in the West.

“The irony in all this is that almost every one of these cases is treatable. Professor Suryani used her limited resources and has already successfully treated these people, all of whom have recovered and are now living normal lives”, said Rebecca Henschke as the editor of Asia Calling during her visit to community with Professor Suryani and her dedicated team that uncovered a far more sinister reality than glorious tourism industry in the paradise island, Bali.

 

Continue reading “BBC world service program Outlook stepped in to chained people in Bali”

Bali population has increased and reached almost 4 million people in the island that is approximately 153 km (95 mi) wide and spans approximately 112 km (69 mi) north to south; its land area is 5,632 km². The government has pledge 120 billion rupiah for health budget but only 5 billion were set for mental health. The mental health budget that set by the government only to expand the mental institution into more modern asylum. No money were set for people that suffering mental illness that can not come to hospital.

“People with mental illness are often victims of prejudice, which is usually the result of ignorance by family, community and the worst by their own government.  The stigmatization only adds to the suffering and limitations that people with mental illness have to face, and it can lead to their social exclusion”, said Professor Luh Ketut Suryani in the 6th anniversary of Suryani Institute. The celebration try to bring awareness to their stakeholder about the dangerous of un-treatable mental illness in the island.

Continue reading ““Fighting Stigma 5.0” launched on 6th Anniversary of Suryani Institute”

Bali is still disorder from an Apr 9 Time repository essay by Andrew Marshall called “Holidays in Hell: Bali’s Ongoing Woes.” In a article, Marshall claims that H2O shortages, blackouts, garbage, sewage, trade overload and a rising crime rate are ruining a traveler paradise. Most of Bali’s woes stem from a problem that rival resorts would love to have: too many tourists. In 2001, the island welcomed about 1.3 million foreign visitors. Ten years later — and despite bombings by Islamic extremists in 2002 and 2005 that killed 222 people, mostly Australian tourists — the island expects almost twice that number.

“We come to Bali to see the reality of Hell in Paradise, is it only in tourists area that the damage happen or already in the village area where the community never know the effect of tourism”, said Nadjet Cherigui and Fanny Tondre during their visit with Professor Luh Ketut Suryani to the community and seeing the reality from mental health side.

 

Continue reading “French Journalists visit Hell in Paradise”