Mental Patients Held Prisoners in a Church for Spiritual Healing

This report comes from South Africa near Namibia. The mentally challenged people were left chained to trees and heavy objects of years sometimes. Mathias Haufiku reports on this story in AllAfrica. Here is what he says about mental patients being held prisoners in a church for spiritual healing.

Mental Patients Held Prisoners in a Church for Spiritual Healing

The practice of incarcerating mental patients with chains padlocked to tree trunks and other objects has apparently been going on at the church for over a decade after the victims sought "spiritual healing" from Reverend Matyayi for mental and other illnesses.
After New Era broke the story, members of the police and social workers appalled by the illegal detentions intervened and ordered their immediate freedom on the grounds that the practice infringed on their human dignity.
But the police said Matyayi's actions though well-intentioned, were illegal. They say the situation was prompted partly by the fact that the country has only one psychiatric unit, denying many mentally challenged patients in the country access to proper mental health care.
The psychiatric unit in Windhoek cannot accommodate all people with mental disabilities in the country, hence it sometimes takes years before patients are even admitted, the deputy commissioner said.
"Whenever we have criminal cases involving mentally-ill patients it becomes a problem, because we do not have the facilities to detain such people. Sometimes we have no choice but to lock them up in cells all by themselves to avoid fights with other inmates," he said.
Last week Thursday, Bampton led police officials to the Sauyemwa informal settlement where they ordered the reverend of the church, Moses Matyayi, to unchain the mentally challenged patients.
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While this situation is shocking, what are the alternatives for these people? They haven’t the money for medication and chances are these poor people are violently dangerous. If we think back to mental asylums before medication in Western countries, people were chained up as well. The article didn’t say what became of the 9 people nor what spiritual healing they actually received in the Apostolic Church outside Rundu. What do you think should happen to these people in order for their lives to be more peaceful and productive? Leave a comment below for others to see.