… with less than 500 psychiatrists to 170m people
The number of Nigerians reporting at the Yaba Psychiatric Hospital to treat mental illness rose by 59 percent in 2016, Isaac Adewole, minister of health, said on his twitter handle on Friday.
“There is more demand for services as the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital in Yaba recorded 59 percent rise in new mental cases in 2016,” Adewole said.
As a response to the rise on mental cases, the minister said the Neuropsychiatric and Teaching Hospitals were being equipped to launch suicide prevention initiatives and tackle huge mental health burden.
The disclosure from the health minister comes as the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday that depression was now a leading cause of ill health worldwide
The press statement from WHO notes that Nigeria had 7 million sufferers of depression, representing 3.9 percent of the population.
The WHO report also notes that about 5 million Nigerians, that is 2.7 percent of the population, suffer anxiety disorders. WHO puts Nigeria among countries with the highest cases of depression cases globally.
Other African countries with high cases of depression include Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, and Tanzania.
Seychelles has the lowest number of depressed persons with just 3,722 that is 4 percent of the country’s population.
Olugbenga Owoeye, acting head, clinical services, Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital, Yaba, says early intervention and adequate rehabilitation will help to reduce cases of depression in Nigeria, while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria recently in Lagos.
“The government should train and retrain more experts, vis-à-vis psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, occupational therapists and psychiatric nurses.
“These personnel are grossly inadequate in Nigeria; we have less than 500 psychiatrists to care for 170 million people. The government needs to establish more facilities to cater for the needs of those with mental disorders; the existing ones need to be upgraded.
“All these will go a long way to help tackle the condition,” Owoeye said
Globally, it is estimated that more than 300 million people live with depression, an increase of more than 18 percent between 2005 and 2015, according to WHO.
Margaret Chan, WHO director-general, says, “These new figures are a wake-up call for all countries to re-think their approaches to mental health and to treat it with the urgency that it deserves.
“Lack of support for people with mental disorders, coupled with a fear of stigma, prevents many from accessing the treatment they need to live healthy and productive lives.’’
Shekhar Saxena, director of the department of mental health and substance abuse at WHO, says: “For someone living with depression, talking to a person they trust is often the first step towards treatment and recovery.”
World Health Day is celebrated on April 7 every year to mark the anniversary of the founding of the World Health Organisation, and each year a theme is selected that highlights a priority area of public health.
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