The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Professor Muhammad Ali Pate said the Federal government is working assiduously to address challenges of mental health in the country.
Giving the assurance at the weekend during the public lecture marking the 6th anniversary of Afe Babalola University (ABUAD), Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State, Ali Pate, who was represented by the National Coordinator, National Mental Health Programme, Federal Ministry of Health, Abuja, Dr. Tunde Ojo stated that the government had instituted policy and legal framework to address various problems associated with mental health issues for the benefit of the people.
Lamenting that mental health condition was not limited only to the people walking on the street without care, the minister denounced the way the rights of those affected were violated by those who claimed to be taking care of them.
He added that functional framework were already in place to curtail the violation of rights of people suffering from mental health condition.
“Mental health,” Pate said “affected all. When people talk about mental health, what comes to the mind is, may be, that person walking on the street naked or uncared for. The truth is that we have to be talking about the well-being. Everything about mental health is not about disease but what are we doing to enhance our mental well-being, promote mental health and also ensure that people do not come down on mental health condition.”
He cautioned that rather than talking about mad people it was necessary to be conscious to the fact that many of those who had mental health problems were getting well treated and living normal life.
“I think that is important rather than talking about mad people the truth is that for any person that you see walking naked on the street uncared for, there are quite a lot number of people that have mental health condition and are getting well treated and living their normal life,” the minister stated.
According to him, if they receive care on time and get access to quality health care they will live a normal life and can still have their normal life back.
He said that no one single factor that was responsible for mental health.
“It is a combination of different factors: biological, psychological, medical and social factor. People have mental conditions in their families and can have increased type of mental health condition but that does not mean they would develop it,” he pointed out.
Pate affirmed that government was doing a lot of things to address not only mental health issue in Nigeria but also some other problems through policy formulation.
Enumerating some of such policies he said: “We have a national mental health policy that everyone, including state actor, state government can take up on. It’s a document that has something for everybody to be able to address the mental health of Nigerians.
“We have the national social prevention strategic work. All of us know there’s lot of reportage in the news about suicide. What can we do as a country, as organization to be able to prevent suicide because suicide can be prevented, we gave that document and of course, there is a lunacy act that talks about the right of people with mental health.”
Pate recalled that federal government passed the National Mental Health Act in 2022 to address violation of the rights of people with mental health conditions.
The anniversary lecture was titled “Achieving Universal Health Coverage Through Mental Health Service Integration.”
