A patient (C) learns embroidery with two interns at the Mai Huong Day Psychiatric Hospital in Hanoi.

A little support is all patients need at the country’s only outpatient psychiatric hospital.

Hoi says T. is always staring vacantly off in the distance and rarely speaks, except for in his English class.

At the Hanoi hospital, T. and 20 other patients speak with enthusiasm in their English lessons everyday.

The classes are all part of Mai Huong’s philosophy that encouragement, activities and learning are the paths to true health.

T., a university student, first visited the hospital last month after the death in his family.

Since then, T. has come to the hospital everyday to take part in group activities and receive medication.

Recognizing T.’s English skills, doctors promoted him to teacher. They say this is one of their interactive treatment plans to help patients recover from mental illness.

“Although we can’t tell you exactly how he became the way he is, we do know that he has become happier since he began treatment at the hospital,” says T.’s father.

“I only hope to recover soon and resume my studies so that I can help protect farmers from natural disasters and floods,” T. says of his dream to become a relief worker.

P.T.T. took her 40-year-old daughter to Mai Huong after she noticed what she called an “inferiority complex” in the woman.

P.T.T. says her daughter is often sad and keeps silent for long periods of time, exhibiting common symptoms of depression. The mother says her daughter probably feels inferior to her two younger siblings who are more successful than her.

However, her symptoms are not easily recognizable to anyone other than her family, P.T.T. says. She says her daughter lives and works fairly normally.

She had taken her daughter to many places, including pagodas, for treatment, but says it did not help.

But since the daughter began treatment at Mai Huong a week ago, she has been happier and smiling more often, says P.T.T. Her daughter rides her bike to the center everyday.

Like most Mai Huong patients, the two mentioned above do not exhibit any dire signs or symptoms such as serious anger or hysterical outbursts, says Hoi.

He says this kind of “milder” patient is not what one traditionally expects from psychiatric illness. He says this is a more modern variety of psychiatric problems associated with the stresses of modern life.

But Hoi says that not only people with stress, psychological crises, and mental disorders come to the hospital, Mai Huong also treats people for drug abuse.

Established in 1998, the state-owned center is the first and only hospital to provide outpatient psychiatric services alongside work-therapy as well as music and group activities.

The services aim to encourage cooperation among doctors, patients and families.

The most important thing, according to Mai Huong doctors and nurses, is the staff’s attitude.

Whether they are in a good mood or not, they must smile and be gentle with their patients, doctors say.

To them, the greatest challenge for Mai Huong is the lack of awareness of psychiatric illness in Vietnamese society.

Doctors say there are many more who could benefit from treatment at Mai Huong, but they simply don’t know about it.

The hospital has thus hosted conferences and launched a website www.maihuong.gov.vn where doctors post articles about the symptoms and treatment of psychiatric illness.

The hospital also hosts a club for patients’ families to help them become more fully aware of their relatives’ illness in order to best support them.

Source: Lao Dong