South Africa: The invisible people

Since psychiatric care was decentralised last year in South Africa, patients have been moved from hospitals into community day hospitals that don’t have the appropriate resources to deal with mental illnesses. As a result, many of society’s most vulnerable have slipped through the cracks in the system and now walk the streets like invisible people. A 2007 study by the Medical Research Council revealed that one in six South Africans struggle with a mental disorder.