Many have negative reservations about mental institutions. Some calls them madhouses. Most of us wouldn’t imagine visiting someone we know in such a place, let alone staying in one of the wards as patients. But for a certain group of people, the mental institution is a perfect holiday spot.
Yeah, you heard me right. A holiday spot – think Redang, Bali, Gold Coast, etc.
HM is a 62-year-old divorcee and chronic schizophrenic who is staying with his elderly stepmother in a simple house in Kluang, Johor. He does odd jobs, just to get some money to buy some food and necessities. It’s been a long time since he last held a real job. Having lived with schizophrenia for the past 30 years, he has gotten used to the voices that persistently ring in his head, resistant to even the most powerful antipsychotics. Having said that, he considers himself in remission now that he’s no longer aggressive and disorganized. His illness is very much crystalised like his character and life. He’s odd, but harmless.
Despite being “well”, he came to the casualty last night with all smiles and a small luggage in his hands. I sat him down and do the usual assessment. He complained of feeling “sad” and “weak”. However, his facial expression, speech, body language and affect totally betrayed him. I found no depressive symptoms or physical ailments in him, except for a mild upper respiratory tract infection which didn’t quite bother him. I was about to send him home with some symptomatic medicine when he blurted out in shock, “Aren’t you going to admit me to the wards?”
Surprised, I reassured him that he doesn’t need an admission. Some oral meds and a lot of rest will do. He shook his head, looking alarmed. “Please, doctor!” He pleaded, “I want to go to Hospital Permai (the state mental hospital). Look, I’ve even brought my things along. I can’t go back home today. I need to be admitted.”
“But you are well. Tell me why you want to go to Hospital Permai.” I said.
He broke into smiles. “Well, I go to Hospital Permai at least once a year. I have friends there. I know many people there. And they give me jobs to do. It’s good for me. Whenever I feel sad, I’ll go to Hospital Permai and stay there for a few months. Then I come out feeling great! Please, doctor… please send me there.”
As much as many of us discriminate mental institutions and its inhabitants… there are a minority of people who find bliss in what we think as a cold-and-scary place. Many stable, chronic psychiatric patients feel accepted as persons in the presence of others who are just like them – labelled ill by doctors, shunned by family, condemned by the society. In the mental hospital, they are given a chance to live. They make friends, they make conversations, they help out with the chores, they are given duties and responsibilities – all which makes up the community life of a person. So many of them who returned to society still remember the fond memories they’ve weaved during their stay in mental institutions, and they feel the need to go back to their “second home” once in a while to fill their cup.
I had to discuss HM’s case with my boss over the phone because I know if I send someone so well like HM into the mental institution, the medical officer on-call there would have thought that I’m completely insane. So I need to put my boss name in the referral just to shut the medical officer up for the additional work I’ve sent his/her way, which in my opinion is not totally unnecessary. Only because I feel that HM deserves his version of holiday for most probably he’ll never get to enjoy the standard holiday that you and I have, given his social and financial status.
My boss, being one of the kindest man I’ve ever known, laughed when I told him about HM and his luggage and his hopeful smile. He too, have come across many of such cases in the past
“Grant his wish, Cindy.” And so I did.
My reward? A hearty expression of thankfulness and a large grin from a man who had so little.
Oh yes, maybe I haven’t told you about one of the biggest reasons why I prefer working in a government hospital – we don’t turn away patients just because they cannot afford to pay big bucks for our services, we don’t send them off just because their problem is “too small” to be. Even though our beds are limited, our finances tight, we still do our best to provide the best of healthcare that we can manage to those who really need it. And that perhaps, is one of the greatest satisfactions of my job…
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