THE Founder of the Mental Health
Foundation, Dr Emmanuel Owoyemi,
said on Thursday that 64 million
Nigerians had one form of mental
illness or the other.
Owoyemi, who disclosed this to the
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in
Lagos, on the sideline of a forum to
mark the 2013 World Mental
Health Day, attributed the
situation to the absence of a mental
health policy in the country.
The forum had the theme: “Mental
Health and Older Adults“.
“Sixty four million Nigerians today
are going through one form of
mental illness or the other because
everything that would cause mental
illness is on the increase in Nigeria.
“Poverty is on the increase,
hopelessness is on the increase,
insecurity is on the increase. There
is so much panic at heart, anxiety,
high level depression.
“And also, there is no mental health
policy in Nigeria right now; the
National Assembly has been
delaying in passing the Mental
Health Bill.
“None of the psychiatric hospitals
in Nigeria today has up to 1000
beds and we have over 160 million
people.
“We have about 150 psychiatrists;
we have 34 neuro-surgeons in the
whole country, meaning that, one
point something million Nigerians is
to one psychiatrist.
“How many people can one
psychiatrist attend to within the
1.2 million or 1.3 million?
“So, we are not doing enough. The
human capital is not there, the
facility is not there, and yet
everything that could cause mental
illness is on the increase in Nigeria.“
The World Federation of Mental
Health, in collaboration with the
World Health Organisation (WHO),
set aside October 10 every year to
raise awareness on mental health
issues across the world.
Owoyemi urged the National
Assembly to ensure the speedy
passage of the Mental Health Bill to
reduce high rate of mental cases.
“We need a mental health bill, a
national policy for mental health;
that is where to start from.
“There must be law; there must be
legal framework to work with;
there must be policy. That bill is
what will help us to be able to do
every other thing.
“If we say, let’s start putting
facilities, structures, systems in
place, it is the bill that will give us
the legal framework to do all that.
“So, if the bill is not passed nothing
else can be done, even to budget
for mental health adequately, we
need a bill that guides everything
we do.”
Source

More than one-third of the population.
Like NAIRALAND. . . like NIGERIA!!!
Blame una GOD!

Stale news sha!

dridowu:
“None of the psychiatric hospitals
in Nigeria today has up to 1000
beds and we have over 160 million
people.

No wonder @Willy2willy, Omexom0ron and co have remained unattended to. Schizophrenia shouldn't be a life sentence, but it will be for these folks if they are not given urgent attention.

In otherwords, 10%.of nairalanders are mentally ill... (Musiwa and lincy) comes to mind

iterator25: In otherwords, 10%.of nairalanders are mentally ill... (Musiwa and lincy) comes to mind

no let musiwa invade ds thread wit all his pictures..............lol

This is one study I agree with.