Is Africa getting mental healthcare right?

I want to be a part of this all important discourse.Mental health in Africa need some attention and focus.The global south appears to be lagging behind when it comes to mental illness,diagnosis and interventions.Government policies appear to be targetted at other forms of health needs eg.malaria,water borne diseases but not mental health/illness,why?Am a mental health practitioner working in the United Kingdom with 9 years of clinical experience, meeting the needs of mental health clients.There appears to be a positve outlook and unconditional respect when relating to mental health clients.This is not the case in Africa.Why?This needs to be explored further and through this discourse,better forward thinking approaches will be identified.

We African never been kind to our brothers and sisters who are mentally and physically challenged. that is the truth. we need to educate ourselves how to understand the, most of us can't even do what a mentally ill persons task.

Judging by the amount of mentally challenged individuals seen wandering the highways and towns in Nigeria I would say Africa is not doing enough to look after these people.

African goverments are capeble of buying fire arms to make there own people surfer, but contrubuting to health is the least handled. may be most of the african presidents are not doctors. thats why health is only tackled when government go bankrupt from the fire arms they shoped for.

On june 17,2010, i was traveling from Abeokuta to Ifo in Ogun state of nigeria and a lunatic who was beside me at a motor park suddenly ran into a pick-up loaded with planks.in a nutshell,the motor killed her.But ,the question that bothered me since then is that had family of such people taken good care of them appropriately as they would have done are they wealthy,such might still be alive today.Besides,authorities and religious institutions should commit more resources to the treatment of lunatics rather than promoting fraudsters.

in fact, any society with neglected lunatics indicts itself as a useless society.

Mental health care in Africa has a big problem. Here in Cameroon i know of people who have been mentally disturbed for over 30years. We are not getting it right. I think the West should come in and help the lacking, inexperienced health workers of Africa.

Africa as a continent has a huge stigma against mental illness. It's universal belief in Africa that mental sickness is a spiritual problem and not something that can be cured using orthodox treatment. Hence, mental patients end up at the shrines; and when they're unable to recover, are abandoned as cursed, beyond recovery. Unfortunately, this same mindset operates within the less-resourced few mental facilities spotted across the continent. The bottom line is Africa is not adequately resourced and mentally and spiritually prepared to deal with mental sickness the way it's supposed to be dealt with.
Mine own observation is that no nation or continent for that matter is adequately prepared to deal with mental illness. What I know is that when the problems detected and diagnosed at its early stages, something is easily done about it. But when the illness progresses, it's too late even for the Western world with all their technology to completely heal a mental patient. Hence the institutionalization of these poor souls. There's more to mental illness than the medical field can handle. African's are partially right in their diagnosis of the root course of the problem; but are wrong in most cases in the quest for solution.

Much thanks bbc. If these brethrens are truly heald as claimed,then why must they be still loitering about the psychiatry ? They have found refuge there and have got you nurses and doctors as their mothers and fathers,brothers and sisters. Why must they be forced out ? They rather need a bigger home not the streets. Somebody please take this serious !

in my time in Ghana I worked with mental health patients. below is a now famous article written about the care mental health patients receive, i highly recommend it.

Why should people with mental disorder be treated differently given that we are all created by God and in His image. Every human has an equal right to life whether having a mental problem or not.

They are not lunatics.

This is a very important question and requires a serious answer. I think most African leaders have a mental problem !! Some African leaders are elected to lead their people , but when it is time to relinguish power , they refused to do so. Such behavior has an impact on the lives of the people and can also traumatize the ordinary person. Take for example the situation in the Ivory Coast , Tunisia , and Egypt. If only political leaders in Africa would respect the Democratic process , provide for their people , reduce rampant corruption and respect the rule of law , then the question of whether Mental illness in Africa would be irrelevent to a larger extent except in isolated instances like witchcrat , and drugs.

I would say if African leaders love their citizen as much as themselves the whole continent will be a better place or how do we explain the case of African leaders dying richer than the Countries they are elected to rule when both physical and mental health of their citizens are neglected? Do we say these so called leaders leave in another Planet different from ours?

I have just lost a brother to what has been explained by medical practitioners as "bipolar disorder" which led him to commit suicide. Wakepedia describes bipolar disorder or manic depressive disorder as psychiatric diagnosis that describes a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated energy levels, cognition, and mood or without one or more depressive episodes. It took 8 months from the time we noticed the mood changes and he was treated by a number of doctors. At times the doctors prescribed him such strong dosage of the medication that alarmed farmacists. The doctors were not responsive to our pleas of close monitoring of his condition and most times completly inacessible. During his funeral I took time to explain to the public what led to his death and many people came forward to reveal that one or more of their family members were suffering from similar ailment but were ashamed of it. The first approach should be to educate the public about mental illness, on the fact that is just a normal desease like any other and it is treatable. The second approach is to improbe the mediacal facilities and a in-house follow-up process when the patients are discharged from the mental institutions. Mental health education would require an aggressive public education in Africa , similar to HIV/Aids.

Mental Health services are certainly seconday in the face of other more pressing needs in most societies. Even in the west, it is only in the last century that mental health needs began to recieve some meaningful attention and that is not sufficient as is. In developing countries, the social fabric which is the infrastructure to have been providing support to the needy is undergoing drastic change from the traditional communal focus to the more western individualistic focus. This is not helped by political systems that donnot make this or other matters political, fiscal, social and Implementational priorities. Often, the developing countries run to the west and yes, the west can help with tsome know-how but it can not plan, decide and implement for the developing countries. This is where true leadership, a coherent vision, deciplined institutions and an informed/educated citenzenry counts. Money handout from wherever may be necessary but definately not sufficient to provide mental health issues the attention it needs. African leadership has to plant the provabial seed, if there is to be progress in this and other development matters.

We have lived in West Africa for 15 Years. To have a mental disorder or temporary mental illness. Is thought of as a curse or from witchcraft. While ever people are not educated in this point. They will not stop calling the mentally challenged lunatics. Sadly the lack of Psychiatric, Doctors and Nursing staff is also an issue.

This comment though also written in English, could open up a lot more in an attempt to discuss inadequate practices in health care in general and mental health in particular. In other English speaking areas out of the UK, Terminologies appear to have differing meanings, values differ and motives for setting up schemes in health care may be obscure. Loaded isn't it? Think about these

Pastor Nathan, I am an African-American who works directly with persons diagnosed with mental illness I agree that it is of spiritual roots. the world is in denial as to the roots of the problem so treament will never offer a lasting cure just a band aid (medications)approach to control the sypmtoms.

Thank you BBC for bringing this important issue up. I have just returned from Ethiopia, and although I am no expert in this field, I noticed an unusual number of mentally ill people in my suburb. I met at least 3 locals from my suburb who were severly affected, one of them was just eleven years old. Perhaps there would be just as many in any suburb of the Western world. It may just be more noticeable in Africa because the people aren't getting the right treatment.
Whatever the reason, I do think much, much more needs to be done for the mentally ill who are poor.
The eleven year old I met was distraught. He had been found wondering the streets. He kept repeating 'I want to go home', but when asked where he lived, he couldn't remember. From then on, he wailed and wailed for his medication. He refused to move from where he was sitting, so he slept, urinated and defecated in that same spot. He has been in that same area of pavement for almost a month now. Only after two weeks of care (as in love, not psychological help) shown to him by a whole team of people has he started to perk up - that's not to say psychological help isn't needed.
My point is, to make progress, it seems that a mentally ill patient needs a lot ot care. The fact is, there doesn't seem to be enough people who care to spend time with poor, mentally ill people.

I don't know how to make more wealthy or trained people willing to help. I don't know whether more - or less - people in the future will want to help. What I do know is that, if no more people are coming, the limited people that we DO have must do the best job they possibly can. And that directly applies to Ghana's Accra Psychiatric Hospital. This is a desperate situation and the hospital is SO needed, they musn't hold back. They musn't do less than they are capable of.

Africa is of course getting it all wrong! using Nigeria as a prime example, where we have mentally ill people roaming the streets from Lagos state to Kano state. The Government needs to focus on building a structured health care system for its citizens, in summary they need to build more psychiatric homes, re-orientation & education of mental health workers and of course have a structured plan to tackle this problem.
All said we the people need to have/show compassion to our fellow brothers & sisters...it starts from there