The incidence of mental illness among African migrants in Malta is more than 12 times higher than it is among the Maltese, according to a scientific paper published in the International Psychiatry Journal.
The study shows that 400 out of every 100,000 irregular immigrants suffer from some form of psychosis, a generic term for a series of mental health illnesses involving loss of contact with reality.
This compares to 32 out of every 100,000 people within the Maltese population, which is still considered to be high within psychiatric circles.
The paper says: “For those aged over 19 years, if the Maltese population had the same risk of psychosis as the migrants, we would have had 660 patients.” The data emerged when the authors – Nigel Camilleri, Anton Grech and Rachel Taylor East, experts in psychiatry – were compiling statistics on the socioeconomic status and population density risk factors for psychosis in the Maltese islands.
Five per cent of patients under study were irregular immigrants.
There can be many factors contributing to this high incidence of mental illness but, according to Dr Grech – who is also head of psychiatry at Mount Carmel Hospital – a single reason for this cannot be pinpointed.
However, the suffering of their voyage, their life stories and their long stay in the detention centre could be identified as triggers.
The journey migrants undertake, changing their environment and leaving their societies, often in difficult conditions, risks triggering psychosis. “When people emigrate, even when it’s legal, they are always risking psychiatric problems,” Dr Grech stressed.
The data comes in the wake of last week’s death of Mali migrant Mamadou Kamara, whose friends claim suffered from deteriorating mental health after he escaped from detention.
Earlier this year, a Nigerian man was hospitalised following a suicide attempt at Safi detention centre. Four months ago, Suleiman Samake, also from Mali, was shot by the police in an incident at Għar Ħasan cave. Several acquaintances claimed Mr Samake’s “obvious mental health problems” started during his mandatory detention period in Malta.
Dr Grech said the more people felt different from the world around them, the higher the chances of psychiatric problems.
“It is the reason why, sometimes, when people migrate to a new country, they tend to stay in an environment that is familiar to them, hence, the creation of ghettos,” he said.
“From my clinical experience, I can say that they have to deal with their life stories in the country of origin and the stress they go through to leave their homeland,” he said.
Moreover, Dr Grech pointed out that irregular migrants often felt cheated. “Well, they have been cheated in the sense that they would have been promised a new life in Europe and then it turns out to be totally opposite to what they were expecting,” he said.
When a person suffers from psychosis, s/he usually becomes detached from reality, showing symptoms like delusion.
“People start seeing and hearing things that don’t exist or start believing that someone wants to poison them, for instance, so they refuse to eat,” Dr Grech said, explaining that psychotic patients cling to a belief that was culturally unexplainable. Treatment has to be medical because it is the chemical imbalance in the brain that needs to be addressed.
While people can be genetically predisposed to have this condition, given the right environment this would never be triggered.