The patients maintain the cleanliness pretty well under supervision by Staff members. They suffer from spells of depression and withdrawal especially if they skip their medication. It is really a strange and bizarre mental illness. I remember a prominent local monk once told me that there is a correlation between mental illnesses and heavy breaking of the first and fifth Precepts viz the Precept not to kill and the Precept to abstain from intoxicants. Sometimes the terrible effects on the minds already start to take shape in the later years of their lives.
People have a lot of taboos and misconceptions about mental illnesses.
It's really a matter of degree. In Hospital Bahagia, we learnt that many of the inmates' families had already abandoned them. It's really pitiful. The number of cases of mental illnesses is on the rise. We have the wrong attitude.