NAN-H-8
Rehabilitation
By Yashim Katurak
Abuja, June 17, 2017 (NAN) The Mandate Health Empowerment Initiative, an NGO, has called on the Federal Government to include the rehabilitation of existing mental health facilities in the country’s budget.
Mr Ameh Zion, the President of the organisation made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Saturday.
Zion said rehabilitating these already existing facilities will help to improve the willingness of citizens to use the facilities thereby increasing the level of professional management of the various conditions presented.
He said these dilapidated, underfunded, over stretched and over populated facilities were located in Benin, Lagos, Enugu, Kaduna, Sokoto, Kwara, Maiduguri, Akwa-Ibom and Ogun states respectively.
Zion charged the Federal government to take proper steps towards rehabilitating the facilities and make them more befitting for citizens to attend.
“We have psychiatric hospitals in Nigeria but they are underfunded, not maintained and dilapidated.
“The federal government should consider these facilities as far as the budget is concerned so that it can be more befitting for use by citizens.
“We need more people with mental health problems to visit these facilities and get the necessary help they require.
“A lot of people have phobia going into mental health hospitals for evaluation. We therefore tried to push for the construction of facilities in at least two geo-political zones of the country.
“We have written to the Federal Ministry of health in this regard and hope that they will start up something soon,” Zion said.
He said the organisation would continue to make efforts towards carrying out mental health sensitisation programmes in communities within the FCT.
According to Zion, this is because from our investigation we learned that there is a very high number of persons engaged in drug use and abuse in some communities within the territory.
He stressed one of the leading causes of mental disorder in developing countries today to be drug use and abuse of it.
He said this informed the need for the organisation to continue to push for sensitisation of citizens on the health implications of such habits.
Zion expressed optimism on the success of the campaign stating “this will help crash the tide of drug use and abuse. (NAN)
KRY/SH
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edited by Sadiya Hamza