Dwelling with psychological sickness has been a harrowing ordeal for Safiatu Kondeh. The 34-year-old, who lives in Kabala, northern Sierra Leone, along with her mom and two youngsters, has needed to endure situations virtually worse than the illness.
Hunger, abuse, shackles, homelessness, and a collection of pricey but ineffective conventional treatments have been Safiatu’s each day realities for greater than a decade. Save for a short stint in Guinea throughout which she was handled with psychotropic remedy, she says, the expertise has been unremittingly traumatic.
“My best concern is of a relapse,” she says.
Psychological well being providers are restricted in Sierra Leone and largely centralized within the capital, Freetown. There are solely 5 psychiatrists within the nation with a inhabitants of seven.5 million individuals.
There are lots of misconceptions round psychological well being issues within the nation. The causes of the sickness are sometimes attributed to sorcery, household curse or strife, with many blaming the sickness on the deeds of these .
World Well being Group (WHO) is supporting the Authorities of Sierra Leone via the Ministry of Well being and Sanitation to exchange the 1902 Lunacy Act with a Psychological Well being Act that addresses modern psychological well being points. The WHO Psychological Well being Motion Plan 2013-2030 highlights the steps required to supply acceptable interventions for individuals with psychological issues together with despair.
“Unfavourable attitudes in direction of individuals dwelling with psychological sickness, perpetrated largely out of ignorance, are resulting in large neglect, abuse and stripping individuals of their dignity and elementary human rights,” says Dr Steven V. Shongwe, WHO Consultant in Sierra Leone.
For many who push previous the stigma to hunt remedy, conventional drugs is commonly the primary recourse. Public confidence in conventional healers is excessive. However the apply of conventional drugs is unregulated, leaving sufferers susceptible to unscrupulous suppliers.
“Some [traditional healers] feign the facility to treatment by administering standard psychotropic medicine acquired from unofficial channels to their unsuspecting sufferers,” says Susan Arthurtina Stephen, a psychological well being nurse on the Kabala Authorities Hospital.
Nurse Stephen is now supporting Safiatu and others within the district with psychological well being providers, offered via the Psychological Well being Coalition of Sierra Leone, one of many civil society advocacy teams working to rework psychological well being providers within the nation. The Coalition augments the psychosocial providers it offers with livelihood help to individuals recovering from psychological sickness.
“Psychological well being response requires supporting service customers to reintegrate into society and productively contribute to their communities. This helps restore their dignity and alter the notion about psychological sickness and the restoration course of,” says Joshua Duncan, Nation Director of the Psychological Well being Coalition. “We don’t want our beneficiaries to be seen as burden on their households and the neighborhood after restoration.”
Fina Marrah, a mom of two who misplaced her husband in 2018 through the mudslide catastrophe within the capital Freetown that claimed a whole bunch of lives, suffered deep misery that led to deep despair and anguish.
Like Safiatu, Fina and lots of others who recovered following the psychosocial help offered by the Psychological Well being Coalition, are being educated in livelihood expertise to help themselves and households. The 2 are utilizing the stitching expertise and machine they have been provided to generate revenue. For Safiatu, the ambitions for her youngsters hearken again to her personal struggles.
“My best want is for them to be educated to supply psychological well being care to individuals affected by the situation,” she declares.