How poverty increases mental illness – Experts

Jane Sesugh is a mother of two mentally challenged siblings and on the verge of losing her own sanity occasioned by the difficulty in caring for the children aged between 28 and 31 “I’m totally drained; emotionally, financially and otherwise,” she said. Sesugh, 55, who declined her real name on print, told our correspondent, that […]

Jane Sesugh is a mother of two mentally challenged siblings and on the verge of losing her own sanity occasioned by the difficulty in caring for the children aged between 28 and 31

“I’m totally drained; emotionally, financially and otherwise,” she said.

Sesugh, 55, who declined her real name on print, told our correspondent, that she needs help to continue to cope with caring for the duo because she was also losing her sanity.

She narrated that two years after the death of her husband, himself a sufferer of mental illness, her younger son who was living and working in one of the South Eastern states was bundled home by some friends following suspicion that he had lost his mind.

The woman further explained that before then, the elder sibling who had taken to smoking Indian hemp shortly before her husband died was at a rehabilitation centre to enable him regain his health and return to his work in Abuja.

According to her, however, that was never to be as the siblings deteriorated in their health in the months afterward because there was no money to continue treatment for them.

“You can see why I’m losing mine. I sit in this house all day with both of them in the same compound. Sometimes, they get violent and are locked up in their different rooms; other times, they are allowed freedom. In some instances, they would abuse me from morning till night or threaten to kill me,” Sesugh added.

Our correspondent reports that apart from Sesugh, there were many relatives of sufferers of mental illness in the state who are faced with similar challenges, especially also lacking financial capability to treat the patients.

Besides, there are reportedly more mentally ill people living in denial or those simply overlooked by their relatives among many roaming the streets.

A clinical officer at a Community Comprehensive Health Programme of the Methodist Church of Nigeria in Benue State, Dr Terver Chieshe, said over 1.25 million people in Benue have one form of mental illness or the other.

Chieshe made the disclosure at the Epidemiological Unit of the Ministry of Health, Benue State, during a sensitisation exercise for nursing mothers who turned up for child immunisation as part of activities that marked this year’s World Mental Health Day (WMHD) in Makurdi, the state capital.

He said: “There is a relationship between poverty and mental illness. When you are poor, you tend to develop mental illness easily. When you are poor, you are less likely to get good education that will get you a good job and lead a good life.

“When you are poor, you are more likely to abuse substances, alcohol and likely to be in cult and things like that. A lot of our youths are jobless, untutored and unmentored. Basically, the people have failed to get the basic necessities of life and that is not healthy for the communities.”

The medical practitioner explained that the ailment could be linked to various predisposing factors such as poverty among other genetic, physical and social factors.

Chieshe added that many people were suffering from mental illness without knowing it, as he emphasised that continuous sensitisation and awareness campaigns by stakeholders in the health sector would go a long way in addressing the issues of mental health. He therefore called on government to ensure the welfare of Nigerians for a better mental health.

He also urged the state government to engage the over 1000 trained psychologists roaming the streets for the overall mental health of Benue people.

Head of Department of the Federal Medical Centre (FMC) Makurdi, Dr. Obekpa Isaiah, said there was no clear cut statistics of mentally challenged people in the state but that clinical attendance alone at the Psychiatric section of FMC indicated that a minimum of 140 outpatients seek mental help on a weekly basis.

He said at least 140 outpatients were attended to on Mondays and Fridays with each clinic day attending to between 80 and 60 patients.

Isaiah added that at any time, there were no less than 20 patients hospitalised at the facility just as others who came to seek medical help outside the clinic days showed that progresses were being made in the unit.

He listed the causative factors for mental illness as biological, childhood adversity, social problems, extreme poverty and drug and substance abuse among others.

The psychiatrist, who however said that the battle against mental illnesses was being won, though slowly, stressed that, “the pace is not too fast as we expect but we can do a lot more.”

He added, “we can have a state mental health act. The act if passed into law would help people with serious mental cases who are kept at home and others walking the streets.”

Isaiah appealed to the state government to get more people involved, saying that mental illnesses are a public health concern.

He urged everyone to be part of the fight against mental health menace, positing that everyone is a stakeholder who must watch out for abnormal behaviour in individuals around them for early psychiatric attention.

While expressing optimism that mental illness could be cured and sufferers return to do their normal businesses, the psychiatrist called for a law to protect affected persons.

“Stigma is still a very big issue. Human rights abuses are rife,” Isaiah added.

However, our correspondent observed that the FMC’s psychiatric unit in Makurdi lacks adequate manpower, basic amenities such as availability of water, power supply and toilets.

The unit also has dilapidated buildings, even though it is partly being renovated, and  appeared uncomfortable for patients and staff, and the surrounding stinks of faeces and had overgrown grasses.

On his part, a psychiatric with Benue State University Teaching Hospital, (BSUTH), Dr Olorunninyo Omidiji, harped on more awareness on mental health, noting that the scourge has continued to  gain momentum in the society.

Omidiji opined that incidences of suicide in recent times in the country had a lot to do with psychiatry problems, and urged people to be their ‘brother’s keeper’ by watching out for symptoms such as sleeplessness, disturbances with sense of perception, hearing voices or seeing things that others were not seeing, distortion of thoughts and abnormal beliefs among others.

Omidiji also encouraged people to seek medical help, even as he called on government at all levels to implement policies that would improve mental health care services in Nigeria.

Daily Trust reports that all the mental health experts agreed that extreme poverty remained a factor contributing largely to mental illnesses even as they have advocated for proper awareness creation and urged families of sufferers not to hide their relatives’ condition but seek medical help to enable them lead healthy life.