A Consultant Psychiatrist at the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology [LAUTECH] Teaching Hospital, Dr. Oluwatoyin Fasesan, has decried alarming rate of stigmatization against mentally-ill people in the country and called for psycho-educational interventions as effective tool to check the derogatory attitude.
This, she said, would ensure community knowledge about likely causes of mental disorders and why harsh negative and derogatory attitudes towards the mentally-ill must stop.
Fasesan stated this at a sensitisation programme for traders at Odo-Oba, Ogbomoso, in the Ogo-Oluwa local government area of Oyo State.
It was organised by the hospital’s Department of Psychiatry on how to check stigmatisation against mentally-ill people and increasing psychiatry morbidity.
“This is why we are out into the nooks and crannies of the state to inculcate in community, knowledge of likely causes of mental disorders and why harsh negative and derogatory attitudes towards the mentally ill must stop.’’
“While it is often overlooked as a public health issue due to a historical focus on communicable and more immediately life-threatening diseases (such as HIV/AIDS and malaria), mental health has profound effects on an individual’s quality of life, physical and social well-being, and economic productivity. Because psychological disorders also affect families and communities of the mentally ill, understanding the effects of mental illness on individual patients and social systems is necessary for the improvement of mental health care systems and the development of effective mental health care delivery programmes.’’ Dr. Fasesan asserted.
While stating that the prevalence of psychiatric morbidity is high in the state, she stressed the need for mental health promotional services for the rural population.
According to her, ’’the World Health Organisation [WHO] recommends that developing and developed nations adopt more comprehensive preventative and interventional mental health programs to reduce the negative effects of mental illness on patients and their local and global communities.’’
Earlier, the team from the department which also include two resident doctors, Oluwafunbi Opadola and Taiwo Alatise, as well as a medical/social worker, Mr. Jacob Alade, had in their separate addresses at occasion attributed common causes of mental illness to include misuse of drugs, traumatic life events, excessive alcohol intakes, stress and genetic inheritances.
They added that negative attitudes, discrimination, and stigma experiences of the mentally ill, coupled with poor knowledge of causes of mental illness contribute to the disease burden.
Meanwhile, residents of both Oyo and Ogbomoso towns have expressed concern over increasing large number of young people with mental disorders.
Investigation showed that most of these mentally-ill persons, who were non-indigenes, were brought and dumped in the ancient towns by some well–meaning individuals after using them for money rituals.
Some residents were said to have explored the situation by having sexual intercourses at night with female ones among the lunatics.
Consequently, these female lunatics were abandoned without any care whatsoever after being impregnated.
Few good –spirited individuals usually come to the assistance of the pregnant lunatics, by taking them to the health centres and provide for their needs to ensure safe delivery.
Two residents from Ogbomoso, Billy Adeoba and Adams Onaolapo, who appreciated and lauded the teaching hospital’s public sensitisation, called on the state government to complement the efforts by ensuring complete evacuation of the lunatics from the streets.
Also, Tiamiyu Allan and Bimbo Ori-Oye from Oyo who expressed dismay over how female lunatics are being impregnated and abandoned to their faiths, appealed to the hospital to extend similar enlightenment opportunity to the community, in order to reduce the ugly incident.
