Wellness & Fitness

Don’t deny your father his civil liberties after illness

man

A patient who has recovered from depression can manage all his business and legal affairs without help.

Q. We have a problem in the family. My ageing father was diagnosed with a mental illness before he could sign some land transfer forms and his will. Although he is now okay, we are wondering whether he can legally write a will.

My father had three wives and has lots of property in Nairobi and Kirinyaga.

Your father is ageing. How old is he? Is he in his 60s or 80s? In clinical terms, we have three types of elderly people. The young elderly in their late 60s, the elderly in their 70s and early 80s and the very old in their late 80s, 90s and beyond.

These three groups suffer from slightly different types of mental illness. For example, if you look at the rates of dementia, you will find increasing frequency with age.

Just to complicate life for you, in addition to changes associated with ageing, other factors like past use of alcohol, family history, and physical health, for example diabetes and hypertension, will all contribute to the dementia prevalence.

As though this not sufficiently complicated, some forms of dementia manifests themselves slowly while some others are rapid.

Some medical conditions, particularly in old age can seem like dementia. Among these are diseases of the thyroid gland, slow bleeds into the head and certain growths around the brain, among others. Depressive pseudo dementia is a form of depression that closely resembles dementia.

Why do we go into all this detail? We do so to show that telling us that your father was diagnosed with a mental illness does not tell us all that much about cause, course and possible response to treatment.

It is critical to point out that some (not all) of these conditions can be treated, sometimes with full return to normal health.

To answer your question therefore, we must say that it depends on the type of mental illness your father suffered from. If indeed he was treated and made a full recovery, then there is no reason why he cannot manage all his business and legal affairs without your help.

A history of mental illness is no reason to take away from him his civil liberties and responsibilities. Many people recover from this affliction and go on to lead normal lives.

I am not sure why you tell us that your father has three wives and much by way of property. It is possible that you are concerned that a dispute could arise over his property.

Many things continue to fascinate me in Kenya. One of the most intriguing is the fact that families continue to fight for the right to bury one of their own.
In all such cases, there is an underlying land or money issue. It is for that reason that few if any go to court to fight for the right to bury a poor man!

When you say that your father “had three wives” does that mean he now has only one or are they two? Why did the others leave? What has he provided for them in his Will?

I would suggest that you seek the help of a competent lawyer to advise him on the steps he must take to ensure his good name is not splashed in the media after his death.

The lawyer will take him through the steps involved in making a Will. These will first require him to state that the document is his last Will and testament. In his case it will be critical to establish that at the time of writing the Will he was of sound mind, and that he writes the will freely and willingly.

The state of being of sound mind is generally taken as the normal condition, and any person who wishes to show the contrary later will have to prove this fact.

On the surface, all these things seem very clear and simple. In clinical practice they are not! Some months ago, a man of means was brought to us by his children who claimed their father had completely changed since their mother died.

Two threads of evidence were put forward. Firstly he had met a woman younger than this youngest child and he was living “in sin with her”. The children were both angry and ashamed.

Secondly, and according to the children more seriously, he had gone on a “selling spree” of his shares, land and houses in Nairobi and Mombasa.

In three months, he had disposed of property worth tens of millions of shillings. Nobody knew what he had done with the money, but they suspected it had something to do with the young woman.

The truth was that this man had developed a severe depressive illness, had found a “bishop” from a new church, who had offered to pray for him and his sins “for a small fee” All the money went to the “bishop. The young woman in question was innocent.

When he recovered from the depression, he was angry with the bishop who was clearly taking advantage of his condition.