Chapter 1. City of Gheel: Community Mental Health at Its Best
1.1 City of Gheel: Community Mental Health at Its Best
Short Description
In the city of Gheel, Belgium, psychiatric patients reside with and are cared for by local families. Careful screening at a psychiatric hospital excludes dangerous patients and pedophiles from placement in the program.
Long Description
Once patients are placed, a psychiatric nurse and psychologist monitor their relationship with the foster families. Over time, reports nurse Mark Hendricks, patients improve as they discover their specific roles within the families.
For forty-five years, Jeff and Clara have lived together as brother and sister. Although Clara was originally a patient who joined Jeff’s family, today they provide each other companionship and support. The same mutual support is apparent in the lives of three elderly women, who call themselves the “Three Musketeers.” They share household chores, go out together, and seem inseparable. Medication of patients can often be reduced as they become acclimated to family life.
Patients often live for decades within the family setting. Although the care-giving families are paid for each troubled person that they accept, clearly the care they provide is more than a business. The newcomers become accepted members of the family. For example, Mark, a 32-year old male diagnosed with schizophrenia, is flourishing. He maintains contact with his biological family but reports that he feels more secure with his foster family.
The director of the psychiatric hospital that oversees the family care program reports that occasionally patients experience a crisis and are temporarily hospitalized. Once they stabilize, they return to their families. Patients removed from their families even temporarily feel that it is a punishment. Many of them participate in a jobs program run by the hospital.
Dr. Matthew Dumont, a Boston psychiatrist, reflects on the strength of the Gheel family-care program. Not only the families, he observes, but the entire community accepts and embraces the psychiatric patients, a population that is typically marginalized in other parts of the world. Gheel is a community defined by its inclusiveness.