02 Jun 2013

The Sbrana Psychiatric Hospital is not being utilised to its full capacity due resource limitations, says the institutions’ public relations officer, Ms Same Gower.

In an interview recently, Ms Gower said the private and adolescent wards were not yet open while the day hospital was not fully utilised.

Ms Gower stated that opening the facility’s private and adolescent wards would need a significant number of extra resources and some expertise in managing adolescents with mental illness.

Furthermore, Ms Gower said it would also require adequate monitoring mechanisms to prevent possible risk of abuse to children or adolescents by adult patients adding that full utilisation of the day hospital would need more vehicles to transport patients to and from areas around Lobatse area, including Kanye and possibly Gaborone. 

In addition, she said Batswana were reluctant to embrace the importance of good mental health compared to their physical health or to openly acknowledge having mental difficulties, probably because of stigma attached to the illness.

As such, she said most cases of mental conditions were referred to hospital at an advanced stage, something that she said made intervention difficult. She said the stigma was unfortunate because some people shied away from seeking treatment whilst others sought improper and sometimes dangerous treatment from unregulated practitioners.

Admissions of psychiatric patients at Sbrana Psychiatric Hospital for the year 2010 stood at 1 371 and 1 171 for the year 2011. In 2012, Sbrana registered 4 731 outpatients and 527 were new attendances while 4 204 were repeat attendances.

However the relapse rates, she said, were probably higher than that of other countries at the same level of development because the local community psychiatric services were still poorly organised and hardly available in some areas. 

This, she said that meant a significant proportion of patients were not properly followed and supported after discharge from hospital to ensure that they were compliant to the treatment plan.Ms Gower said the institution had a significant shortage of psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses, clinical psychologists and occupational therapists.

She said Sbrana Psychiatric Hospital was the only centre in the country which was appropriately resourced to holistically treat mental illness. ENDS