In commemorating the 2019 World Mental Health Day, Ekiti State Government, through the Office of the Senior Special Assistant on Public Health, organized a symposium to sensitize relevant stakeholders in the health sector on the need to keep abreast of issues leading to breakdown in mental health of individuals.
Speaking at the event tagged; ‘War Against Suicide’, the SSA on Public Health, Dr. Jimlas Opeyemi Ogunsakin, in his keynote address (Implementing Sustainable Growth for NGOs in Ekiti State), said that there is so much awareness on Mental Health across the globe, therefore the State Government is looking to build the capacity of Civil Society Organisations and Non-Governmental working in Ekiti to curb the high rate of suicide by addressing issues Organisations leading to depression.
In his presentation titled; ‘Mental Health Programming’, Ogunsakin described Mental Health Policy as organized set of values, principles, objectives and areas for action to improve the mental health of a population.
He also defined Mental Health plan as a detailed preformulated scheme for implementing strategies for the promotion of mental health, the prevention of mental disorders, and treatment and rehabilitation while Mental Health programme is a targeted intervention, usually short-term, with a highly focused objective for the promotion of mental health, the prevention of mental disorders, and treatment and rehabilitation.
The SSA explained that National Mental Health Policy is to promote mental health, prevent mental illness, enable recovery from mental illness, promote DE stigmatization and desegregation, and ensure socio-economic inclusion of persons affected by mental illness by providing accessible, affordable and quality health.
While outlining the objectives of the Mental Health Programme (MHP), Ogunsakin said that it provides Community Mental Health Services and integration of mental health with General health services through decentralization of treatment from Specialized Mental Hospital based care to primary health care services.
Ogunsakin said the government; CSOs and NGOs can develop and improve mental health prevention strategies by increasing social, professional, and political awareness of advancements and the importance of mental health prevention and promotion.
“Stakeholders can move clinical practice toward at-risk-oriented detection and intervention. Provide interventions designed for each developmental stage aimed at minimizing the impact of risk factors. Secondary prevention interventions aim to reduce the progression of a mental health disorder, through screening, early identification, and brief treatment. In many settings such as outpatient mental health clinics, CMHCs are deeply involved in such efforts,” he said.
In his presentation tagged; ‘Suicide and Suicide Prevention, the role of NGOs’, the Deputy Director, University Health Service, Federal University Oye-Ekiti, Dr. Oshatimi Michael Abayomi defined suicide as an act with a fatal (death) outcome, deliberately initiated and performed with a full knowledge of what outcome will be and with an intention for death.
He also said that suicide is among 10 highest causes of death in most countries. In the last 4 years.
“For Every suicide reported, 30 deliberate set of harm has occurred. According to a World Health Organisation report, 800,000 people die from suicide yearly,” he said.
He outlined the social causes and risk factors of mental health such as; High unemployment/Poverty, Divorce/Simple/Separated, Childlessness, Criminal record, etc.
“Psychiatric and medical factors include; Previous psych illness, Chronic medical illness, Personal disorder, Depression, Alcohol misuse/Drug misuse, Past history of deliberate self harm, Genetics and Hopelessness.
“The government and relevant stakeholders can improve on services that will help prevent the spate of suicide by providing better and more psych service. The government can restrict the means for suicide (Sniper), encourage responsible reporting (Media/NGO), initiating Educational Program (NGO), improve Care of High Risk group, provide Hot line crisis center (NGO), Target High Risk group, provide Counselling Services, Integrate /Be your Brother’s keeper, provide school-based Interventions and provide Follow up care system,” he ended.
The second presentation, ‘Alcohol use disorder (PhD Thesis)’ delivered by Clinical Psychologist, Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital (EKSUTH), Dr. Adedotun Ajiboye mentioned that Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) is a problematic pattern of alcohol use leading to clinically significant impairment or distress. Typically, it includes a strong desire to take alcohol, difficulties in controlling its use, persisting in its use despite harmful consequences, a higher priority given to alcohol use than to other activities and obligations, increased tolerance, and a physical withdrawal state (MentalHealth, 2015; WHO-ICD 10, 2015 ).
He further said that a global study says no amount of alcohol is good for our overall health (LaMotte, 2018).
“The highest percentage of alcohol-related deaths occurs among people between 15 and 29 years old (EpiAnalysis, 2012a). And most of the target audience in this study (university undergraduates), belong to this age group. In Nigeria, per capita alcohol consumption rate is 12.3 litres, compared with world’s per capita alcohol consumption rate (6.13 litres) (WHO, 2011; Nwanko, 2015).
“Alcohol was seen as the leading risk factor for disease and premature death in people between the ages of 15 and 49 worldwide in 2016; accounting for nearly one in 10 deaths (LaMotte, 2018),” he said.
He however recommended that health workers in primary healthcare setting and schools/university clinics should be vigilant in asking questions about alcohol use from adolescents and young adults to disallow under recognition, under diagnosis and under treatment of AUD in our society.
“In order to prevent early age of onset of AUD among university students, psychoeducation against alcohol use should be included in secondary school curriculum and emphasized when students are about to leave secondary school into universities programmes. More so, in universities, education against drug abuse should not be limited to freshers’ orientation. It should be a continuous exercise.
“Conducive therapeutic settings should be created in our schools, equipped with assessments kits and experienced mental health professionals to attend to AUD cases amongst other solutions,” he said.
The Technical Assistant, Office of Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Public Health, Mr. Ojo Henry discussed on ‘Global Mental Health Financing Mechanism’ said that suicide is the second leading cause of death among 15-29 year olds globally, 78 percent of them in LMICs, and is the leading cause of death for young women (15-19 years).
“Worldwide, around 10 percent of expectant and 13 percent of new mothers experience a mental health disorder, but in developing countries those figures increase to 16 percent and 20 percent respectively.
“Despite the huge burden, mental health receives a fraction of the funding allocated to other diseases, especially in LMICs where both the quantity and quality of available treatment is inadequate,” he said.
Ojo said that funding for mental health comes from a combination of national governments, international organizations, bilateral donors, trusts and foundations and individuals paying out of pocket.
“Within domestic governments, several departments may be funding different aspects of mental health (e.g. health and social service provision through Ministries of Health or Welfare) and an increase in funding for mental health could impact the budgets of a number of ministries providing mental health services. In LMICs (especially Nigeria) a substantial amount of mental health treatment is met by out-of-pocket payments as most governments lack the funds to provide comprehensive mental health care.
“Trusts and foundations are already a considerable source of mental health funding. An increase could be achieved either through an expansion of the programmes of existing funders or increasing the number of trusts and foundations that fund mental health.
“These grants form part of the Health Partnership Scheme (HPS) which is a six-year program that funds health partnerships to carry out training and capacity-building projects in low-income countries. The Scheme is funded by the UK Department for International Development and managed by THET (partnership for global health),” he said.