The Chairman of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) Plateau, Dr Bapiga’an Audu, has said the doctor to patient ratio is getting worse, with one mental health doctor to about 1,000,000 patients.
Audu made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Jos.
He lamented that mental health is an area of medicine that has been left unattended to for a long time.
”There is dearth of manpower for mental health in Nigeria. On the Plateau, we have only six psychiatrists serving a population of over 5,000,000 persons and this isn’t only for the state.
”These doctors also serve neighbouring states like Bauchi, Taraba and Kaduna as patients from this states come to Plateau to get treatment,” he said.
He called on the government at all levels to address the dearth of manpower in the mental health sector.
Audu said the simplest way to overcome the neglect of mental health is by giving people information through health education, which is why the NMA is advocating the inclusion of mental health in any health education programme or subject.
The chairman explained that health, entailed the physical, mental and social wellbeing of an individual and not just the absence of disease, therefore health education should teach the physical, mental and social component of man’s well being.
“Unfortunately in our society when we talk about health education, it is usually mainstreamed to physical hygiene alone, it should also go with mental education ” he said.
He pointed out that not everyone with a mental illness has psychosis (madness), stating that it would be psychosomatic disorders.
Audu ,encouraged people to seek medical help when they experience a mental health challenge.
The chairman said that there is a need to overcome the issue of stigma, as stigma is the major impediment hindering people from speaking out about their mental health challenges as the society scoffs at them.
He also called for the inclusion of mental health into health education subject in the school curriculum of pupils and students in primary and secondary schools.
The NMA mental health committee on the Plateau is raising awareness on the benefits of mental health education being included in health education, and on the importance of addressing the issue of stigma and the grossly inadequate mental health workforce .
Similarly a clinical psychologist, Mrs Ijeoma Laluwoye, said the inclusion of a mental health subject into the school curriculum of pupils and students in primary and secondary schools was imperative to enable them understand their mental health status.
She opined that a child who is knowledgeable about his or her mental health status, could easily dictate when there is a mental health challenge.
Laluwoye said the pupil or student, when faced with such a challenge like any other health challenge can seek help early from mental health experts knowing that such a challenge isn’t peculiar to such an individual alone and there is a solution.