ICRC Provides Mental Health Support to 10,000 Persons in Borno State

The International Community of Red Cross(ICRC), has provided mental health and psychosocial support services to 10,000 traumatized victims in Borno state in eight years.

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Ms Comfort Dauda, The ICRC Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Field Officer, made this known in Maiduguri, that ICRC has been providing mental and psychosocial support for people affected by violence of armed conflict in the state, noting that they are in one of the communities to celebrate World Mental Health Day with some of their service users.

She explained that ICRC has also provided basic psychosocial support, psychological first aid, psycho-education, awareness-raising, community-based activities, counseling, group therapy, psychiatric psychological assessments and treatments to the beneficiaries.

“The beneficiaries were drawn from Maiduguri Metropolitan Council, Damboa Dikwa and Monguno and Bama.

“They were provided with 10 weeks of psycho-social support services,” she said.

The official noted that those who accessed the services included IDPs, missing persons, hospital patients suffering weapon wounds; frontline healthcare workers; and people in detention were treated in various health facilities.

“We are supporting such patients in Umaru Shehu Hospital, State Psychiatric Hospital and State Specialist Hospital and University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospitals in the state to provide such services to the victims.

“We also collaborated with the State Psychiatric Hospital to train some social workers and nurses to support people affected by violence on mental health and psychosocial support services.

“We are also collaborating with the State Ministry of Health and Women Affairs to provide psychological support services to women, girls who were sexual violent victims.

“We are currently working in three communities in the MMC including Ngaranam Bayan Quaters and Libya Bayan Texaco where over 340 people with the same symptoms go to the centers to sit down and interact for ten weeks with our mental health and psychosocial support professionals,”she said.

Speaking, Malama Batul Bulama, an IDP, said she recovered from trauma after accessing mental health and psychosocial services provided by the organisation.

Bulama said that before she was treated in one of the centres, she was depressed and had serious health complications after she and her family were displaced in their community by Boko Haram insurgents.