For many West Australians, Bali is a holiday paradise. But on the idyllic island, and across the Indonesian archipelago, up to 26,000 mentally ill people are kept in cages or stocks. Now, a local group is working hard to change things — with some early success, as Kim Macdonald from the Weekend West a newspaper for Western Australia reports. The dire state of Bali’s mental health system, can be blamed on decades of neglect by authorities who do not understand the illness.
“Bali does not see mental health as a priority,” says Professor Luh Ketut Suryani as she explained to Kim that the governor gave some recognition to the problem in 2009 when he pledged $1 billion rupiah to the Suryani Institute, but cut it by 90 per cent the following year.
“We loved Bali so much and so does our people in Western Australia”, said Kim and for this she promised to help making mind pressure to Bali’s government in changing the system for mental health. She is totally agrees with Professor Suryani’s philosophy to prevent the need for the costly trips by educating family members to administer the monthly medication.