Integrate Mental Healthcare in Primary Health Services – Expert
A mental health expert, Prof. Taiwo Sheikh, says mental health care services should be integrated into primary healthcare, general hospital and tertiary level care to help reduce stigma and the number of patients visiting traditional homes for care.
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Sheikh, a Professor of Psychiatry at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State, said there was a huge gap in the number of mental health services available in the country and the number of people demanding the services.
The psychiatrist who is the immediate past President of the Association of Psychiatrists of Nigeria, made the call while speaking with PUNCH Healthwise in an interview.
He lamented that lack of specialists, inadequate modern mental health facilities and poor funding were confronting mental health services in the country.
The don who decried the huge gaps in mental health services in the most populous country in Africa, said 80 per cent of people who have mental health issues in Nigeria are unable to access modern health care services.
Prof. Sheikh said the government must address the gaps for people with mental illnesses and ensure they have access to modern mental health services and stop patronising unorthodox care.
“There are studies conducted in this country that looked at the pathway to mental health care and found out that 70 per cent of people who have mental health issues in Nigeria first of all would go to traditional healers or spiritual homes first before they come to modern hospitals.
“Then we also have an issue of the mental health gap. That is the gap between available orthodox services and what the people are getting.
“In this part of the world, it has been shown that the available services and the service demand, the gap is up to 80 per cent.
“Up to 80 per cent of people who have mental health issues in Nigeria are not able to access modern health care services.”
According to him, patients with mental illness suffer stigma and patronise traditional healers because they do not have access to modern health services.
“When we are talking about why patients are patronising spiritual homes and traditional healers. The question is do we have enough modern health care facilities for people to patronise?
“Do we have equitable, available, accessible and affordable modern health care facilities for people to access? The answer is no, we don’t have”, he said.
On the issue of manpower, the psychiatrist said the country also has a huge gap, lamenting that only about 300 psychiatrists are serving over 200 million people.
Prof. Sheikh noted that for Nigeria to bridge the gap, the government must improve the manpower and facilities available.
Continuing, he said, “Look at the number of specialist institutions that we have that offer mental health services.
“Outside the specialist psychiatric hospitals which are eight in this country, the others are departments of psychiatry of teaching hospitals that are scattered across the country here and there.
“Most state governments do not have provision for mental health services not talk of local governments.
“We need to increase the manpower available. Not only that, we need to provide fund that will improve what we are talking about. And the provision of funds by either direct budgetary allocation for mental health and also by integrating mental health in all levels of health care delivery system in Nigeria.”
He concluded, “Mental health should be integrated into primary healthcare, all general hospitals and all tertiary hospitals.
“By so doing, we are increasing available services to people, the number of patients visiting spiritual homes and traditional healers will reduce because there would be increase in access to modern treatment. It will also reduce stigma.”
MTO/Punch
