Thursday, June 11, 2009

Mad-House Justice

There’s a wretched squaw in epic need of mental health care, vegetating on the ‘sacred’ street below the Supreme Court building. In the smouldering daystar, in the drenching downpour, and even when the legion is lagging home, she’s ’plinthed’ on the parched pavement with her napless, dirt-caked, gamy body. One long month has crept by; nobody tries to help, for it is someone else’s job. When I was leaving the courts today, she was fast asleep – or freshly deceased – in the afternoon rain.

12 comments:

  1. OMG! I hope she isn't dead!

    ReplyDelete
  2. God look after them by making them extremely hardy. I bet she's up again like a statue by the time I get there tomorrow!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Reminds me of that Phil Collins song.."Another day in Paradise"..

    ReplyDelete
  4. Aby, now that you mention it, it reminds me of that song too...one of my all-time favourites.

    ReplyDelete
  5. So sad.
    She could become a useful citizen if there was the support system to help her and the others in her state of mind(excuse the pun).
    Somebody's daughter, somebody's sister and perhaps somebody's wife abandoned simply because her family is unable to help her.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Sooooo true, Posekyere.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Sad one Nana Yaw - is it my imagination or does there seem to be more mad and homeless people on the road than there was a year or so ago? I do hope some else helps her before its too late. In cases like this it is not even clear who you should be calling.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Yes, Denise, sad. Not sure about the numbers on the street. Has been way too high for about a decade now. And you're so right about not being sure who to call.

    ReplyDelete
  9. aww, sad one there NY, the other day I saw one with a cup. And right in front of me he fetched water from the gutter and drank it. Man I wanted to puke, and cry. I can't survive that man, LORD give them strength, and healing.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Wow this one really hit me. You said exactly what's been on my mind for ages. I think the most suffering people in Africa or say Nigeria and now Ghana are people with mental illness. There is no service available for them at all.
    In Nigeria they put them in prison / asylums and you can just imagine the state of these "prisons". They stay there without trial or conviction for years and years.

    Check this article:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8023067.stm

    It frustrates me whenever I see "mad people" on the street suffering...recognized by their lack of shaving or combing of hair..because it seems even the poorest of the poor make sure to do that, but the "mad people" have given up long time ago..It frustrates me that people say a person is mad, when I recognize that the individual might just have been an ordinary daugher, woman, who was abused and no one to help her until she went crazy.

    ReplyDelete
  11. i've been wondering for a while now about this thing called 'madness'.

    the question is:
    is it that the 'normal' ones can't bring themselves to appreciate the conditions of these fellows and so continue an everyday negligence or is it that we would rather just write-off people with such conditions not caring a hoot and rather look elsewhere for where comfort beckons?

    whenever i think about it, i wonder who is 'mad' really. the one suffering the labeled 'mad' condition or the who thinks he is 'normal'?

    and yet our governments just keep collecting taxes.

    and it's even a pity how these folks are treated in the so called asylums.
    i feel ashamed.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I am also shamefaced, Nov. Really.

    ReplyDelete

After writing your comment, please select the Name/URL box below, and write your name in the box, before submitting your comment.