By Hassan Zaggi
The Association of Mental Health Reform Organisations in Africa (AMHROA network), has advocated for mental health reforms that will support the reality of the current mental health demands for the African continent.
President, Mandate Health Empowerment Initiative (MHEI), Ameh Zion, stated this at the International Mental Health Reform and Care in Africa Summit, in Abuja, Thursday.
The focus of the Summit, according to him, is to reemphasis the need for mental health care in Africa.
He argued that when mental health care and reform is given priority by all the African governments and all the international donor partners, the African continent will experience development.
According to him: “It has been clearly stated that there is no health without mental health. You can’t achieve anything outside mental well-being. It is very important that we prioritize the mental health for African descents.
“It is very important that we see that the mental health reforms of the colonial masters, all the mental health reforms that have been archaic are repealed within the African countries.
“We want to see new branded mental health reforms that will support the reality of the current mental health demands for the African descents. We want to see that there is commitment through these reforms that there is some investment, increment in budgetary allocation within the African continent, also commitment to local research data for Africans.”
He reiterated that: “We want to see how we can come up with our own solutions, understanding the cultural differences and the ethnicity of the African descents so that we can provide solution that is fitting to our people and also understanding our backgrounds whether it is culturally or religious wise.”
Zion noted that AMHROA network is committed to knocking the door of African governments and all the international donor partners operating in Africa to again, go back to the drawing board and prioritize mental reforms, mental health care so that “we can clearly see the integration of mental health into the Universal Health Coverage (UHC), so that we can see that there is access to mental health care to all African descents.”
On his part, a member of Board of Trustee (BoT) of MHEI, Chief Warkani Ali Haruna, called on African governments to provide adequate care for those having mental health challenges in the region.
While noting that no one is immune from having mental health challenges, Chief Haruna called on governments at all levels to take responsibility of those having mental health issues by providing them with care.
“We have seen the devastation of mental health on people everywhere, we have seen the failure of governments to provide adequate care for those having mental health challenges, therefore, this body has decided to embark on advocacy to draw the attention of governments and members of the society on what they need to do in the area of mental health which is being neglected.
“When you see mentally derange persons on the street, no body seems to take responsibility of them, where as they are members of the society. The only way we can mobilise such support is to engage on such advocacy, particularly lawmakers so that there can be some legislations to assist the medical institutions to have more funding so that they can take care of these group of people.
“Everybody can find himself in such situation tomorrow, nobody knows who will be the next victim and no body is immune of mental health challenges because you wouldn’t know where it will come from,” he said.
While enumerating the causes of the increase in mental health challenges in most countries, Chief Haruna explained that: “The economic situation of most nations of the world and Nigeria inclusive have given rise to so many situations where people who normally yesterday were well, suddenly become challenge today mentally because of too much thinking. We have also seen the effect of hard drugs consumption on mental health.”
While commending the establishment of some agencies to take care of drug related issues by the government in Nigeria, he however, said that, “that is still not enough because we have seen the number of people coming to rehabilitation centres is growing by the day and you can see that the level of crime is also on the increase. The sophistication and different types of crime, especially violence associated with crime, is escalating.”
