A recent report produced in the medical journal The Lancet revealed that the mentally ill were neglected in developing nations, with 90% of them getting no medical assistance at all. According to the authors of the article, mental illnesses usually resulted from wars, poverty and diseases.

Rwanda is no stranger to these problems. The neuro-psychiatric hospital in Ndera is at this moment the only referral hospital for mental health problems, and although it has a capacity of only 210 patients, 230 patients are currently being treated there.

The director of nursing at the hospital, Jean Michel Iyamuremye, explained that all kinds of mentally ill patients who can not be treated elsewhere are referred to the hospital. “We treat all patients whether they are rich or poor, we even have VIP rooms.”

He said that many of the illnesses can be cured, with only a few patients suffering from complicated forms of epilepsy and schizophrenia requiring life long medication. “The patients we hospitalize are those who may be a danger to themselves or society, or those whose progress the doctor needs to monitor closely.”

Iyamuremye said that the common cases of mental illness are depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, hysteria, suicidal tendencies and post traumatic stress syndrome. He added that although there are many causes of mental illness, most resulted from the patient’s failure to cope with the pressures of everyday life, or drug and alcohol abuse.