13 Aug 2015

Bamalete Lutheran Hospital has recorded a decrease in the number of people with mental illnesses.

Statistics showed an overall 13 per cent decrease between the years 2013 and 2014.

The hospital psychiatric  nurse Mr David Mangwegape has attributed this to the level of awareness on the mental illness condition by the community. 

He told BOPA that as the hospital, they were doing their best to help the community control the number of people with mental illnesses.

He said only 26  new patients have been registered with the hospital for the first seven months of 2015 as opposed to the 74 that were registered last year.

This, according to Mr Mangwegape, could still be improved if the community also played a role in helping curb the situation.

 He said a positive mind, practicing good health and attending counselling therapy could help reduce depression and prevent causes of mental illness. 

Mr Mangwegape explained that mental illness causes include  abuse of illicit substances such as alcohol and drugs, genetical inheritance, depression and illnesses like HIV/AIDS, Diabetes and hypertension.

He said the hospital has a counselling centre that the nurses refer their patients to as it has social workers. 

Another psychiatric nurse practitioner, Mr Danisa Moyo said patients who suffer from schizophrenia normally display change in personal hygiene, from being neat to being unkept

Some patients may display signs like being delusional, claiming to be hearing voices and being less active or being too hyper active than they normally are. 

Mr Moyo also said people who have a blood relative with a mental illness have a 60 per cent chance of inheriting the illness and that explains why schizophrenia, a genetically inheritable mental illness, has the highest number of patients over the age of 45 recorded for the year 2014. ENDS