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The Mental Disorder That Makes Nigerian Leaders Loot, — Prof. Franzek, by bellazz(m): 12:57pm On Feb 18, 2018 |
Ernst Josef Franzek is among the best mental health doctors in
Europe. The German born professor of psychiatry and neurology
spoke with Sunday Vanguard in the Netherlands during which he
expressed worries over what he described as the neglect of mental
health care in Nigeria. He attributed the high number of mental
health patients in Nigeria to poverty and lack of care for mothers
during birth. He also traced the bad leadership in Nigeria and the
high crime rate to mental disorders suffered during birth.
While calling on Nigerians to ensure their leaders pass mental test
before being elected, he criticised the idea of taking mental health
patients to the church and, in the process, subjecting them to
torture.
Who is Professor Franzek?
I am a psychiatric doctor. I have worked in the Netherlands for more
than 40 years. I was born in Germany and educated in a German
university. I was a lecturer at the university but, when I turned 50, I
decided to do new things. In the summer, I go into research and
now I am into another research and treatment of people who have
psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia and people who also have
problem with drugs: Psychiatric disorder and addiction. At the
moment, I am the Project Director of the Organization of Mental
Health Brabant, the Netherlands.
The problem with mental health in Nigeria
The problem is that mental health is almost completely neglected in
Nigeria. One reason is that the population has no possibility to
search for mental health care due to poverty. There are only nine
psychiatric hospitals for about 200 million people in the country.
And mental health care in Nigeria is mostly done through religious
and traditional healers without medical background. This may help
those whose cases are not severe. But in severe cases, mental
disorders worsen. And stigmatization causes a lot of problems. The
situation is that most people in Nigeria don’t have good mental and
general health care and that is catastrophic for a nation like that.
Mental disorders are twice as common in Nigeria as in other parts
of the world. And it is sad that nobody cares about this. And this
has to get into the consciousness of the people because those who
suffer most are the poor people who don’t have jobs, who are
starved of the basic needs of life such as food, water, no adequate
houses. At the moment in Nigeria, the ratio is one psychiatric to
one million people. In Holland, for example, the ratio is 40
psychiatric doctors to one hundred thousand people. You can
imagine how big the treatment gap in Nigeria is, and the situation is
getting worse because life circumstances don’t get better. Being
poor, not having enough to eat, no education, this is one source of
having mental illness later in life. To redress the situation, I intend
to visit Nigeria through the Sunny Ofehe Foundation, together with
the experts in the field of mental health care, in collaboration with
the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, the World Health
Organization and some pharmaceutical companies. We are going to
focus on the need to treat mental health in Nigeria as an
emergency.
There are several anti-social behaviours in Nigeria including bad
leadership at the top. Could this be attributed to mental problem?
There is a whole body of research that when people grow up in an
environment where people are poor, no healthy food, no job, once
the mother and father live there, the offspring will have anti-social
effects from the very beginning. Research showed that if the mother
and the father suffered hunger at the time they made the baby such
that, during pregnancy, they did not have enough food for the
foetus, this can predispose the offspring to this personality trait. The
conclusion can be that anti-social characteristics may be understood
as a form of environmental adaptation so that exposure to
malnutrition, to hunger during the formation of the baby can have
impact on sex determination. This means that, in this situation,
more boys are born than girls because the brain development
predisposes these people to the so called-anti-social behaviours
like, to have food, you have to kill or steal. Even terrorists around
the world tend to come from poor countries just fight for their
people. So, if you want to build a peaceful society, the atmosphere
must be conducive.
The real criminal or psychopath is not the terrorist; the real criminal
is the guy who presides over a people and eats their common
wealth without thinking about their welfare. And we have many
criminals leading the people in many parts of the world today. They
don’t care about the people. But these guys you call bad guys just
want to improve their lives and those of their families. So, to build a
peaceful society, basic human rights must be respected and
government must give the people the basic needs of life. At the
moment, there is a huge gap between the poor and the rich in
Nigeria and, because of this, the poor always become poorer. What
we need is the middle class where everybody has the possibility due
to his own capabilities to walk up. My father was poor, we had
nothing but I had the possibility to go to school and then to do it my
own way. This is basic for a peaceful society. Everybody has to
pursue his life.
Let me tell you also, mental illness does not come from God and
this is a problem in Nigeria. In Nigeria, those who have mental
illness go to church for remedy because they think they have
offended God, but that is not true. It is a problem of the society.
And government plays a role. When you bring people with mental
illness to the church, you don’t really help them; you make their
situation even worse. We have good medication to treat acute forms
of psychosis. The acute forms are in countries like Nigeria more
often than in Europe. Religion and psychosis or mental illness do not
go together. Religion cannot bring solution to mental health; it can
only help the family, giving them encouragement but not healing
the patient. Religion is like people coming together, praying
together, eating together, this should remain; but it should not be
used to cure sick people because it does not work.
If you look at the civilized world, they care for patients with mental
illness because it is not a punishment and, if you give them the
basic things they need, they feel happy despite their illness. But
when you see them punished, when their families feel ashamed of
them, it is cruel and it is not good for them. Nobody is punished if
he has cancer; so why are they punishing people with mental illness
in Nigeria? They chain them and flog the hell out of them.
Why Nigeria leaders loot
The problem in Nigeria is that the rich people make money and they
have no brains any more. The poor people have no voice; so there is
no competition. This also has to do with growing up. If the leaders
were given the best while growing up, their brains would have
formed better and they will not have to steal. And for this to
change, I think, before Nigerians elect their leaders, there should be
public competitions among aspirants in which the people will
participate and see the mental state of the aspiring leaders. During
such competitions, there should be no written paper, so that when
they talk, you will know whether they speak from their hearts or
not. Nigeria is supposed to be practicing democracy, but it is not
really a democratic nation because the rich use their wealth to
acquire things and run for political positions and the common
people have no choice. In fact, that is also where you can ascertain
whether the person aspiring to be or President is fit to lead the
nation or not because, when you don’t have a healthy President, it
causes dislocation in the system. And that is the problem you
people have in Nigeria. I want Nigeria to be united because that will
make them greater tomorrow. Agitations come because you have no
middle class, the rich are getting richer and the poor are fighting.
Mortality rate
Mortality rate in Nigeria is quite high, especially among children.
Government must improve on women’s care during pregnancy
because if the pregnancy is not good, child birth will be
complicated. The food that the woman eats is also important.
Nigeria is the fourth country with the highest mortality rate among
200 countries in the world. Nigeria is also in the leading position in
death per hundred thousand people through fire and car accidents.
Again it is not healthy for a woman to have more than three
children but you find that, after war times, the number of children
grows just to compensate for those who died. Now, Nigeria has
about 200million people and, in about 30 years, even with the high
mortality rate, it may end up with 500million to one billion people.
It will now become one of the most populous countries in the world.
It is not a problem but the basic needs of life must be put in place,
otherwise it will be a catastrophe because the country will not be
safe anymore. And Nigeria is a beautiful country; my future wife is
from there and I want to come and live there; so I want the best for
the country.
The future of Nigeria and psychiatry
Nigeria has a positive future; all you need is a highly motivated,
educated people; people who will work for the people and not for
money. The situation now in Nigeria is that highly skilled people like
doctors, psychiatrics receive education there and then move to
Europe or North America because they want to earn a lot of money.
Government must make Nigeria attractive for these people to stay
there so that they can develop community treatment. It does not
help Nigeria if you build very expensive hospitals and no manpower.
First of all, you have to develop a treatment centre that is close to
the people and everybody can afford. This is the first step. Then in
the area of mental care, you have to involve traditional doctors,
those into voodoo; we look at them and take what is good from
them. You must not go there to say ‘what you are doing is wrong’.
We should avoid confrontations because this is a tradition that
people are accustomed to and you don’t wish it away. Tradition
keeps people together and the common interest should be to
improve mental health care, good health. You have to communicate
with these people and get the best out of them. 1 Like |
Re: The Mental Disorder That Makes Nigerian Leaders Loot, — Prof. Franzek, by bellazz(m): 12:58pm On Feb 18, 2018 |
The simple Truth Therein |
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