Schizophrenic Chinese caged for decade by family

A Chinese man, diagnosed as a schizophrenic, has reportedly been caged for a decade by his family after he killed a 13-year-old.

Wu Yuanhong, 42, who was diagnosed as a schizophrenic at the age of 15, is bound by heavy chains and placed in a cage, is being served three meals a day by his mother Wang Muxiang, News.sky.com reports.

Judicial authorities in Jiangxi had arrested Yuanhong in 2001 after he had beaten the child to death but released him a year later as his illness proved that he was not legally responsible for his actions.

According to the report, Muxiang built the cage after he managed to escape from the shackles and tried to scare residents.

Muxiang said that despite her son being insane, he remains her son and she felt like being stabbed with a knife when she had to cage him.

China was home to 170 million mentally ill people while over a 16 million suffered from severe mental health problems in 2009 according to their Ministry of Health.

The report also said that many mentally ill people in China go without proper treatment due to a lack of resources and qualified professionals, particularly in the countryside with only about 20,000 psychiatrists to serve the country's population of 1.35 billion,

Jiangxi had launched limited subsidies for poor families with mentally ill relatives and donated oil and rice for the purpose, the report added.