Photo: Benue State Gov Samuel Ortom
No fewer than 21,000 people in Benue State are currently suffering from mental health disorder (MH) across 23 local government areas and are currently placed on treatment, the commissioner for health and human services, Dr Joseph Ngbea, said on Tuesday.
The Commissioner said that the cause of the increased cases of mental disorder in the state was the incessant invasion of Benue communities by gunmen and armed herdsmen.
According to the Commissioner, the constant attack and displacement of farmers from their ancestral homes has left thousands of them in psychological trauma.
He said the National Council on Health during its activities in Kano State gave Benue the Award of Excellence for its Optimal Performance in Mental Health which has helped in alleviating the plight of families and patients with the disease.
Ngbea further said that the state government had ensured that mental health diagnosis and treatment services were available in all the 23 local government general hospitals, adding the effort was in partnership with the Australian Aid through Comprehensive Community Mental Health Programme (CCMH-P)
“To bring mental health services closer to those in the interior, 144 primary health care centres in the 276 council wards across the state are also currently offering the services.
“There is also an efficient Drug Revolving Fund (DRF) in all the health facilities providing MH services and for now Benue State is the only state reporting the services on District Health Information System (DHIS) a national platform on which Nigeria’s data pool is collected,” he said.
Ngbea added that the ministry had embarked on awareness creation and enlightenment campaigns to over 30 schools across the state to help protect the youths from harmful practices that may predispose them to mental health illness.
He said that the state government’s efforts so far in curbing the mental health situation was no mean feat, adding that the sustained approval and release of budget, had helped the Ministry to scale up its mental health activity.
