In need of more attention

2009-01-21T12:16:00Z

Tan Dawn Wei says an eye has to be kept on mentally ill neighbours.

FOR more than 10 years, Do Lern Hwei never sought treatment for schizophrenia. She couldn’t hold down a job – switching employers every six months.

Sometimes, she left on her own accord. Other times, her employers had told her to go because she was displaying anti-social behaviour. Her friends, too, told her she was sick but left her alone. So did her family.

It wasn’t until she got into trouble with the law – for trespassing in a synagogue – that she was finally referred to the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) and diagnosed.

There are probably many out there like Ms Do (now 40 and working as a nurse in a seniors’ centre) who fall through the system's cracks and seek treatment for mental illness late.

Some never do.

A Residents’ Committee (RC) chairman in Pasir Ris told me there was a crazy lady in his community. For more than 10 years now, she has been a fixture in the neighbourhood, walking around every day in the town centre, talking to herself.

She turns abusive sometimes, hurling insults in Hokkien at grassroots events when denied a goody bag.

The residents are all used to her by now. They just leave her alone.

One lesson, perhaps, about leaving the mentally ill alone, can be gleaned from the recent episode of Yio Chu Kang Member of Parliament Seng Han Thong’s attack.

His alleged attacker, Ong Kah Chua, 70, had been in and out of IMH, lived alone, and was pretty much left to his own devices.

Much has been said before about Singaporeans’ lack of neighbourliness. In a Sunday Times poll of 200 households last year, 53 per cent said they would do nothing even if they felt something was amiss with their neighbour.

Whether it is out of respect for other people’s privacy, a reluctance to get involved or plain fear, those I spoke to for my mental illness story said they generally left their eccentric neighbours alone.

Grassroot organisations, too, admit there isn’t enough community-based social support for these residents. Neither do they go knocking on doors to check if anyone needs psychiatric help.

Until something is done, it seems, that old lady in Pasir Ris is likely to continue wandering around her neighbourhood, ignored.

Do you have a neighbour who has mental illness and lives alone? Take our poll and tell us your story here.

The Straits Times Blogs - Dawn Tan Wei

In need of more attention