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By Akpan David, Calabar
The emerging trend of mental health issues among pregnant and nursing mothers in Cross River State who are suffering certain degrees of mental health issues and post partum stress is now a source of worry to medical experts.
This was made known when a team of medical experts from Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital Calabar led by Dr Edak Okwong of Mental Health Prevention and Promotion Unit visited the director general of the Cross River State primary healthcare development agency, Dr Janet Ekpenyong.
The team contended that there is need to incorporate mental health regiments as part of services enjoyed by women in Primary Healthcare Centres during antenatal services to avoid complications in the nearest future.
Okwong said they came to seek collaboration with the state government via the State Primary Healthcare Development Agency to raise awareness as well as training healthcare providers on early detection and basic management of suspected mental health cases and strengthen linkage/referral of cases to secondary facilities.
“With most of the population of victims living in rural areas, access to the Neuro-psychiatric hospital could be demanding and as such, there is need to create a flexible platform for preliminary clinical services before situation detoriates.
The team disclosed that there has been an increase in the abuse of substance by young adults in secondary and tertiary institutions which aggravates mental cases and depression in the state.
They implied that there are about 50 million Nigerians said to be suffering from various degrees of mental health illnesses with only a fraction of about 10% of the affected individuals having full access to medical facilities and care due to complacency of admission into designated facilities.
Speaking, Dr Ekpenyong described the collaboration as timely and audacious in checking the mental health situations in he state.
She said, “Mental health is a huge challenge in the society today and so much awareness needs to be created, especially with the increasing number of young adults who get involved with substance abuse as well as some strange complications such as depression arising from pregnancy and post patum stress in women and slow development in children.”
She said although the management of these illnesses are beyond the scopes and operations of the Primary Healthcare Centres, early stages of these illnesses could be attended to as well as counseling services provided to clients by health workers who are well trained with desired skills.
Ekpenyong appealed to the Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital team to reactivate the mental health clinic in General hospital Calabar and other secondary facilities in the state to serve as hubs for referral cases from primary health centres.
Ekpenyong was hopeful that in the nearest future, selected workers who will be trained will cascade the teachings to other staff, assuring that mental health awareness is integrated into the PHC services.
They agreed to hold periodic training of health workers on the innovation and requirements for managing mental health patients amongst others.
