Universal mental health
A man and his four sons reportedly slaughtered 11 members of their family the other day in Pano Aqil area of Sindh’s Sukkur district. Those murdered include their pregnant wives and children, some of them as young as one year. The police have apprehended the suspects who allegedly confessed to their crimes. The lead suspect told the police during initial questioning that he committed the act after receiving instructions from the Almighty who “warned of divine vengeance” if he failed to carry it out. But later, in an official statement, the suspect claimed that he had suffered trauma in a fight with his brothers which contributed to the gruesome mass murder.
This is not the first incident where someone has slaughtered multiple members of their family. There is no dearth of socio-economic problems for people in the country to behave abnormally. And then the months-long Covid-19 lockdown has definitely added to the stress of those already struggling to eke out a living amid skyrocketing inflation. But the Pano Aqil case — whichever statement of the key suspect you choose to accept — points to not only the presence of mental health issues but also to their lack of treatment. Indeed, mental health is one of the relatively newer health branches in the country — unlike in the rest of the world.
Even though multiple higher education institutions in the country offer training in mental health, they are few and far between. Hence, not only is the access to mental-health care difficult, but it also carries the prohibitive stigma that seeking help equates to being insane and thus mentally unfit to carry on with your life as it may be. This only helps deny people like those in the Pano Aqil incident and many others with the timely care they need. It is time to change our attitude towards obtaining mental health and make it more universally available, particularly under the new universal healthcare which the government intends to expand countrywide.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 22nd, 2020.
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