The cannibal story: Underneath the drama

Instead of sensationalism and thoughts of disgust, this episode should spark a debate about mental healthcare system.

The cannibal story that recently came into the limelight has become a huge sensation, receiving both local and international media coverage. Reportedly, two brothers from a village near Sargodha have been arrested, suspected of vandalising graves and making curry from the constituents. Instead of mere sensationalism and thoughts of disgust, what this whole episode should spark is a debate about the mental healthcare system that we have in Pakistan.

Humans are, by nature, a diverse breed, brimming with all sorts of disorders and diseases. Only a fraction of the functions of the human brain have been deciphered so far and the arena of mental disorders is a field still very much in major transition. In fact, there are tons of diseases that are added which are missing, and cannibalism, along with necrophilia for that matter, are still not part of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the bible for the classification of mental disorders.

The list of mental disorders is long and tiresome. Some of the disorders are controversial and some appear as repugnant to the non-clinician eye. Bottom line being that it is no surprise that the list of mental disorders continues to grow day by day, often adding ‘mysterious’ and what would appear to be ‘horrifying’ disorders with very socially unacceptable tendencies.

Therefore, we should not be shocked when we hear of this cannibalism story from amongst our midst. It is not a symptom of our decaying and rotten social society, it is purely a medical problem and, considering our burgeoning population, it is a surprise that more cases have not crept up as yet. What this whole problem does highlight is inadequacies in our healthcare structure as it pertains to mental health.

To give you a glimpse about the status quo, the ratio of the number of psychiatrists per 100,000 people in Pakistan is 0.2, which loosely translates into 2-3 psychiatrists for a million people. And the figures get even more damning. There are only four mental health hospitals in the country, and absolutely no mental health reporting system.

And the social stigma attached to mental disorders only helps to compound the problem. I do not understand why, but we Pakistanis tend to disregard mental disorders as a disease, just like any other physiological disease, but classify them as being a stain on our social standing. This results in ignoring and hiding the problem as the immediate response, rather than tackling and curing it.

So instead of putting the cannibalism culprits in jail, the authorities should, instead, put the two brothers in a mental health facility and resort to counselling, instead of bashing and bruising them. The fact that there is nothing about cannibalism in our constitution means that there is not much legal fodder anyway, apart from the six-month penalty for vandalising graves. It would be a greater service from the authorities to address the root issue of the problem, and perhaps finally give much-wanted attention to the reckless state of mental healthcare in Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 8^th, 2011.