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Uganda

World Vision Uganda to increase access and availability of services to mentally ill persons

Flavia Lanyero

As Uganda joined the rest of the world to celebrate the mental health day, World Vision has pledged to continue addressing issues of availability and access to mental health services.

While speaking at a symposium to commemorate the World Mental Health day on 10th November 2015, the Associate Director for Health at World Vision Lorna Muheirwe said that Uganda is still guilty of writing off people with mental health problems and would rather attribute their illness to other diseases making many to miss early diagnosis and treatment.

Ms Muheirwe said that many mentally ill people are still denied basic needs like food and clothing which strips them off their dignity as human beings.

According to the World Health Organisation, thousands of people with mental health conditions around the world are deprived of their human rights. They are not only discriminated against, they are also subject to emotional and physical abuse in both mental health facilities and the community. Poor quality care due to a lack of qualified health professionals and dilapidated facilities leads to further violations.

“We as World Vision want to continue to ensure that these people live with dignity. We want to increase partnerships for mental health, to see that it’s funding increases and to share best practices so that the practices can be replicated elsewhere,” Ms Muheirwe said.

Dr Brian Byamah from Butabika hospital said that dignity for the mentally ill is still deprived because of stigma and discrimination that still exists in our communities which denies the metally ill from seeking treatment on time.

Statisics show that Butabika hospital recives btn 60 -70 out patients a day while at any given day, there are are between 700- 800 in- patients at the hospital. Butabika is a National Referral Hospital in Uganda specialising in mental health issues.

Dr Jacinto Amandua the Commissioner Clinical Services at the Ministry of Health said that more effort still needs to be put in diagnosis as majority of the mentally ill cases are never diagnosed.

“We are not yet reaching everyone with a mental health problem which means that more work needs to be done.