(taken from Straits Times Home Pg 1 and 2 dated 11th June 2007. A continuation of my previous entry of the article from the Straits Times)
Among the Institute of Mental Health's 54 wards are 10 set aside for long-staying patients, where a typical day is marked by a routine of meals, shower, nap, medication and, for some, light chores. Carolyn Quek spent some time with patients and stuff to file this report with photos by Ng Sor Luan.
A large airy room on the sixth floor of the building is where the patients have their meals and spend a better part of their day.
The room has rows of chairs and some tables. A lone television set is mounted on the wall. A pantry and toilet are off to one side.
An occasional wail is heard echoing from the wards.
The smell of antiseptic mingles with the faint odour of urine from the inconteinent among the patients.
The walls are whitewashed, and the floors scrubbed clean.The dark brown window grille is where some patients press their faces for a glimpse of what goes on in the wide world outside.
Some stare blankly at the walls, muttering. Others walk around in circles.
It is after the dinner hour, and one patient, an 88 year old mute Chinese woman, is busy with her "duty" for the day - wiping down the bed frames in one of the wards.
The diminutive woman, clad in the hospital-issue fblue floral top and blue pyjama bottoms, has been a patient for 30 years, after she was picked off the streets. she does not even have a name. She is simply referred to as "Unknown."
Over at the men's ward is Mr Tan Siew Kiat, which is not his real name.
At 69, he is at the Institute of Mental Health's longest-staying patient, having been admitted by his brother-in-law in 1953 as a deaf and mute teenager prone to violent and destructive behaviour.
He has ventured beyond the hospital walls only once - and even then only in a bus - when the hospital moved in 1993 from its old Woodbridge site in Yio Chu Kang to its current premises at Buangkok Green.
Now stoud and balding, he is no longer a hot-headed youth. He sits out his days quietly, and sometimes helps the nurses to arrange the chairs in the ward.
Soon, he may move to the psycho-geriatric ward for male patients aged 65 and up as he is on the waiting list for a spot there.
His family has never visited in all these years. Attempts by the hospital's medical social workers to locate his relatives have been unsuccessful.
Many long-stayers are like him - the dark secret families prefer to forget.
"Most of the patients here have come to treat the hospital as their home," said senior nurse manager Koh Siow Eng.
Medical social workers at the hospital do their best to help trace family members of the "unknowns". This sometimes entails bringing the patients back to the place where they were found to look for people in the area who might recognise them.
Four "unknowns" were admitted last year, of which two were eventualy identified.
Sometimes, even when patients' next of kin are found, these patients' next of kin are found, these patients still do not get visitors. For example, a son of Madam Lim Ah Hee (not her real name) who was tracked down 2 years ago still does not visit her.
She was brought to the hospital at the age of 25 in 1960 by her relatives after her fishmonger husband abandoned her and their four young children.
Each day passes placidly.
A team of three nurses, with added support from health-cares assistants, oversees each 40-pateint ward.
morning call is at 7am, after which the patients take their shower.
Then they go to that large airy room for their meals and to spend their day.
Breakfast and morning medication are followed by about two hours of "activities", which include "reminiscence therapy" with the nurses to jog their memory.
Then it is lunch time. Another round of medication is handed out. After a two-hour post-lunch nap, the patients are up for more activities - such as phyysiotherapy and "reality orientation" exercises - till dinner is served at about 5pm.
After their nightly drink of Ovaltine at 9pm and medication, the patients return to their beds.
The cycle is repeated the nextr day.
Volunteers from religious organisations and schools come in weekly to conduct sing-along sessions or just bring the pateints' their favourite food.
Birthday parties are a monthly affair. Those who do not know their birthday are randomly assigned a month by the nurses.
The more stable long-stayers are taken out once in a while to places like the Zoo, Orchard Road and the Esplanade.
Like the mute 88 year old female patient, some patients help out with simple chores, like helping fellow inmates into wheelchairs or clearing the table after meals.
Nurse manager Mazlan Hassan said:"The idea of getting patients to do these chores is so that they do not remain idle and be too dependent on the staff. We encourage independent living and we do nto want them to deteriorate physically."
An IMH spokesman said that, as much as the hospital has programmes and activies for these patients, some simply cannot respond or take part because of their mental state or because they cannot walk.
But the nurses do not give up.
Ms Mazlan said" Even though some patients don't communicate, we still talk to them. For example, when we wake them up, we say,' Good morning, come take your bath.'
This helps build good rapport between nurses and long-stayers, she said.
She added "We take care of them like they are our family. To us, they are very lovable. We treat them with dignity and respect. So they do the same for us.
carolynq@sph.com.sg
My thoughts/feelings
My heart aches for them.
