SWSL TEAM WITH A MENTAL ILL AND HOMELESS MAN ON THE STREET OF FREETOWN
There are many mentally ill people living on the street without formal support and who are in danger of physical, emotional and mental harm and even death. This is a story of how Social Workers Sierra Leone (SWSL) contributed to transforming the life of one mentally ill homeless man – from the streets of Freetown to the comfort of his own home – and provides an insight into how we can tackle the issue of homelessness across this country.
The SWSL team came across this young man through our Sunday Feeding Program. As one of our service users, we completed an evaluation of his physical, mental and emotional condition and detected a chronic pneumonia (severe cold symptom) that needed urgent medical attention.
This prompted the SWSL team to mount a Facebook advocacy campaign to get medical treatment for him. Fortunately, a US citizen (who prefers to remain anonymous) responded positively. This enabled our team to provide him with psychosocial counseling and support, access mental health treatment at the Sierra Leone Psychiatric Teaching Hospital (SLPTH) and a medical treatment for his chronic cold.
SOCIAL WORKER HELPING HIM TO RECEIVE PHYSICAL EXERCISE
His poor mental and physical health conditions that he had suffered with for too long also severely affected his body movements. His condition was so bad that he required physiotherapy. The SWSL team helped him to get regular physical exercise to improve on his dexterity and bodily movements.
Thus, after an intensive intervention and several successful therapeutic sessions, he was reunited with his family. Currently, he resides in his home with the proper family care and support he needs. This was all made possible through the intervention of SWSL.
Despite this positive outcome, the challenges people with mental health difficulties and those living homeless face include discrimination and stigmatization. Even simple things like getting access to public transportation to access treatment is denied to many such people. For example, we found it nearly impossible to get this survivor to hospital as the Government ambulance we attempted to hire refused to accept him. This discriminatory attitude is limiting the help people like him could get and often means that problems that can be easily treated are left to become worse.
PHOTO L-R: HIS UNCLE, THE SURVIVOR, HIS BROTHER AND A SOCIAL WORKER
We did our best to support this young man and achieved a positive outcome for him but the SWSL team is limited in the support we can offer our service users as we do not have a private vehicle of our own. The lack of vehicle has also limited the scope of our activities as moving from one place to another within the city and beyond is very expensive. With a private vehicle, we could provide such services to numerous vulnerable and mentally ill people who are homeless. We have slowly and patiently built up relationships with many of these people during our Sunday Feeding Program and we want to offer them a more comprehensive package of support.
Therefore, help us overcome these limitations, support us to expand our operations and be a part of this success story. You can donate to SWSL and help transform the lives of so many mentally homeless people who need professional care and support