Human Rights Watch: Kenya's Troubled 60-Year Mental Health Journey
December 11, 2023
December 11, 2023
NEW YORK, Dec. 11 -- Human Rights Watch issued the following news release:
Over a century ago, in 1910, British colonial authorities in Kenya redesigned a then-smallpox isolation center into what became the Nairobi Lunatic Asylum, a dire institution in which African patients-95 percent of the asylum's population-were kept in the worst conditions and European patients in the best. Until independence in 1963, only Europeans worked there as psychiatrists, senior doctors, and nurses.
Over a century ago, in 1910, British colonial authorities in Kenya redesigned a then-smallpox isolation center into what became the Nairobi Lunatic Asylum, a dire institution in which African patients-95 percent of the asylum's population-were kept in the worst conditions and European patients in the best. Until independence in 1963, only Europeans worked there as psychiatrists, senior doctors, and nurses.