Success Story - Community Mental Health Programme

Four years ago, a dreadful incident happened in Argakhachi district (a neighboring district of Gulmi district). One man killed his wife through the use of axe. The death body was post-mortem in Gulmi district hospital. Every staff of the hospital, patients and their relatives were talking about this incident. One health worker trained in mental health by CMC-Nepal, who had lots of clinical interests for this traumatic incident and guessed that may be this man had a mental illness, so he killed his wife.

The police locked the man (Bal Bahadur) at the district jail on the accusation of the murder of his wife. Because of the strange behaviors of the prisoner, the chief of the jail decided to send him to the hospital for medical and mental examination. The trained health worker collected information from the patient, his relatives and neighbors and found out that this man was psychotic and started a medication for psychosis.

During the mental state examination, the health worker found out lots of familial problems like difficult relationships, mental illness in the family, poverty and stress. The family of Bal Bahadur was poor and did not have enough money to feed all the family members and pay for the education of the children. The father (breadwinner) had lots of stress and started to have mental problems after the second marriage. After 7 years without any improvement of his physical and psychological condition, he committed suicide. Regarding the mother, she became psychotic after the death of her husband. After those traumatic incidents, Bal Bahadur was responsible for the education of brothers and sisters, treatment of mother, household work and other family business. It was almost impossible to oversee all the activities by one person. So, he got married and his wife gave birth to one daughter. After a while, Bal Bahadur started to have strange behaviors and not understandable talk. Few days before the dreadful incident, the patient was repeatedly saying that the god's soul entered inside him then he killed his wife as a sacrifice to the deity. His relatives also said that his face was abnormal and he did not have any guilty feeling about the death of his wife.

In the treatment course, the health worker observed a gradual improvement in the patient condition. CMC-Nepal was supporting the trained health worker by supervision visits and case discussions. The trained health worker felt the need to rehabilitate Bal Bahadur and discussed with the chief of jail about how to engage Bal Bhadur in a skills training program inside the jail. Bal Bahadur was very interested by the project and participated to a weaving training. The office bought a weaving machine and raw materials for him. He weaved designable caps and shawls. These products were easily sellable to the market and he earned money from his work. He decided to support for the education of his brothers and sisters and other household expenses. His good work and positive attitude were appreciated by the personnel of the jail.

After a while, Bal Bahadur was transferred to an other jail. One day, the postman came at the district hospital, Gulmi with a letter for the trained health worker. The letter was from Bal Bahadur. He wanted to share his gratitude and his worthwhile life as a murderer in a rehabilitation process. He is now completely alright and seems happy. He is still supporting financially his family through selling caps and shawls.