A community-based rehabilitation centre in Bende Local Council of Abia State, Methodist Church Nigeria Amaudo Integrated Community Mental Health Foundation, has lamented the deplorable state of its access road and infrastructure.
Management of the 34-year-old home said inadequate funding, logistics, and infrastructural deficits, especially the deplorable state of the only access road, about 40 kilometre Bende-Itumbauzo road, stretching to Bende Council headquarters, have become a clog in its wheel of success.
Consequently, the home, started in 1989 by Miss Roselyn Colwil, a Scottish (United Kingdom) Nurse, after she resigned as a Welfare Officer at Uzuakoli Leprosy Centre, sought media support and assistance to change the situation.
Officials of the home said the centre currently receives support from Amaudo United Kingdom and Abia State government, among others.
Director of the Foundation/ Home, Rev. Kenneth Nwaubani, said the centre currently has capacity for64 mentally challenged residents, while N200 million is required to run the centre yearly, although about N5 million is presently expended monthly.
He said: “Our environment is very serene and angelic. We are grateful to Amudo United Kingdom, our donor partners in the UK, Abia State government and other stakeholders.
“We urge relations of the discharged mentally challenged persons not to reject or treat them as outcasts,”Nwaubani said.
Chairman of the Foundation Board, Emma Ndukwe, who said the centre hostsover 5,000 psychiatry student nurses yearly, saidthe mentally challenged residents are not violent, quarantined or restricted.
He disclosed that the affected persons are taught different kinds of skills, arts and crafts during their rehabilitation period.
Speaking at a seminar organised for media practitioners from Abia and neighbouring Imo States, in partnership with Abia State government, Federal Neuro- Psychiatric Hospital, Enugu and Amaudo UK, a senior lecturer and consultant psychiatrist at the Alex Ekwueme Federal University Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, Dr. Okwudili Obayi, counselled Nigerians to look out for people manifesting mental symptoms and report them for medical help.
Obayi, who spoke on the theme, “Changing the narratives in mental health: The role of the media,” associated increasing mental illnesses to anti-people policies, social and economic hardships like inflation, insecurity, unemployment, fuel subsidy removal, hunger, discrimination, kidnapping and robbery, among others.
Obayi, who represented the Medical Director of Federal Neuro- Psychiatric Hospital, Enugu, Prof. Monday Igwe, said globally, one person commits suicide in every 40 seconds, stating that thegeneral populace unleashed violence more than mentally-ill persons.
He enjoined journalists to reduce stress as much as possible and be cautious of words they use in reporting mental health issues to guard against stigmatisation.
He also counselled Nigerians to look out for people manifesting these symptoms and report them for medical help.
The seminar was aimed at educating the media on basic mental health issues and their role in creating awareness for human rights- based mental health care in Nigeria.
In the communique issued at the end of the programme, participants urged state governments to domesticate and implement the new Mental Health Act, which provides for the establishment of mental services department to promote and protect the right of persons with intellectual, psychological or cognitive disabilities.
