Well, being in pain for years under socialized medicine can make anyone go crazy.
But he’s officially not crazy, he repeatedly has stressed this, although throwing his hand into a bonfire so it couldn’t be reattached seems pretty darned irrational, as bad or worse than chopping it off in the first place, like he’d been driven to some sort of mental disassociation, as if his own hand was an evil, alien being that was tormenting him.
If he had been regarded as having a mental problem due to the pain, he might have been more likely to receive treatment.
I wonder what would have happened if he were 14, and his parents took him to Boston Children's Hospital?