15 Feb 2022

Stakeholders have been called upon to demystify mental health for it to get the attention it deserves.

In an interview, the director of Botswana Network for Mental Health, Ms Charity Kennedy expressed concern that most mental health cases were neglected and only paid attention when they have escalated to the extreme.

She said mental illness should be treated like any other health condition that needs urgent attention, saying it was about time discrimination against mental health was stopped.

Ms Kennedy further said stigmatising people with mental illness was wrong as anyone could go through such a challenges triggered by any circumstance.

She cited traumatic events, relations problems either at home work, school, family conflicts, chronic illness, unemployment  as some of the challenges that could result in mental illness.

“Mental illness has always been shrouded in confusion and misinformation and interpreted as witchcraft, yet it is a discipline in the health industry. There is not one particular thing that could be said to cause mental illness,” she said.

She said the COVID-19, pandemic exposed weak mental health systems that needed to be strengthened.

She said there were many uncertainties on how the pandemic would progress while people’s feelings had been driven into a wheel of fear, anxiety and stress about the future.

Ms Kennedy said COVID-19 had taken a toll on many as some lost their jobs, their loved ones, adding that the standard of living which was too high.

She also attributed her sentiments to statistics by World Health Organisation (WHO) before COVID-19 pandemic, which projected that by 2030 depression would be the number one killer disease in the world.

She said her organisation had realised that depression was the leading type of mental illness.

Ms Kennedy further said in most cases, people did not go for depression screening, but instead they tried to find ways of dealing with it on their own or even gave up without realising that it affected their mental health.

“This is why we realise high suicide cases, murder, gender based violence, personality disorders, rape, incest, narcissism, depression, family conflicts substance abuse, failure to adjust to challenges of life and bipolar disorder.  

All these are a cry out for help and it needs efforts to be addressed,” she said.

She advised on the need to reach out to counsellors and take advantage of the available social workers at government health facilities who could refer them to counsellors for assistance. BOPA