The healthcare system and deep-rooted societal stigma are failing patients. <\/p>\n
When a patient is diagnosed with a lifelong physical illness like diabetes or a visual impairment, the South African healthcare system triggers a formulaic network of care, and society generally responds with sympathy.<\/p>\n
A schizophrenia diagnosis forces patients and their families on a radically different path. For most South Africans living with the condition, state intervention is restricted to the acute ward. Once the hospital doors close, the institutional safety net vanishes.<\/p>\n
The World Health Organization characterises schizophrenia as a condition that causes psychosis and carries a profound burden of disability. Though less prevalent than other mental health conditions, it affects roughly 24 million people worldwide. Local data remains severely limited, but a benchmark 2006 study estimated that 1% of the South African population is affected.<\/p>\n
In the face of this, a staggering 86% of SA’s public mental health expenditure is swallowed by in-patient care, with nearly half of that concentrated in specialised psychiatric hospitals. Yet, despite this significant investment, nearly one in four mental health patients is readmitted within a mere three months of discharge.<\/p>\n
Professor Laila Asmal, a psychiatrist and researcher at Stellenbosch University, maintains that this “revolving door” rate is not a clinical mystery; it is a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The healthcare system and deep-rooted societal stigma are failing patients. When a patient is diagnosed with a lifelong…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[78],"tags":[4204,79,20717,179,18,135,3866,19,17,5,790,5258,84081,132,1997,4319],"class_list":["post-512646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-africa","tag-business","tag-current-events","tag-economy","tag-eire","tag-health","tag-health-and-medicine","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-south-africa","tag-southern-africa","tag-sports","tag-trade","tag-travel"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116673691583151080","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}