ON a hilltop overlooking Johannesburg’s northern suburbs, Tara -the H Moross psychiatric centre – looks like a five-star hotel with well-groomed gardens and lawns, a nine-hole golf course, two tennis courts and a swimming pool.
Behind the glitzy appearance is a hospital providing intensive treatment of mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, depression and anxiety disorders. It also deals with eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia.
“The enviroment provides a haven for those in psychological distress,” says the 141- bed hospital’s brochure.
Tara is presently at 80% capacity and also has 1 000 out-patients. A means test determines payments with a maximum of R258 per day for the first 30 days for long-term patients.
Built as a family home in 1938, it was transformed into an army headquarters during World War II. In 1945 it became a plastic surgery unit, and later a psychiatric hospital.
The hospital caters for patients as young as 12, and also has a child clinic. A children’s ward is planned.
Ward 3 mainly treats teenage patients, such as Jenny (not her real name) who, when admitted three months ago for anorexia, weighed 34kg. “I don’t want to be fat, I want to be thin, I want people to like me,” she says.
An economics student, she describes the anorexic programme “as very hard”.
Sophie, a 27-year-old former office secretary, is in Ward 1. She has been there for six weeks and says she believes she will be a bulimic until she dies.
But a few minutes later she says: “I believe there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.”
She adds: “I know I have a very low self- esteem and lack of confidence. The point of me being here is to get better so that I never come back”.
Jane is a 23-year-old schizophrenic. “I felt my parents were against me and I reverted to taking acid which would send me on a six-hour trip,” she says. “Sometimes I get a natural high, where I feel very warm inside and I think I have special powers.”
Jane continues: “Nurses here are cool, they are very nice.” Her treatment consists of group therapy where patients talk about their disorders and try to establish a “better understanding of ourselves”.