Mental health in Africa
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 21 November 2019
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
One of the continent's most neglected issues is finally getting some attention. Africa is affected by mental illness just like everywhere else, but with the added challenges associated with past civil wars and poverty, and a rapidly growing and urbanising population. Yet just 1% of government health budgets have typically been spent funding mental health services.
Manuela Saragosa reports from the Mental Health in Africa Innovation and Investment conference, where policymakers, investors and practitioners have gathered to learn some of the innovative ways that Africans are promoting mental wellbeing despite the lack of resources.
The programme features interviews with Dr Victor Ugo, founder of the Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative; Dr Florence Baingana, advisor at the WHO regional office for Africa; Olayinka Omigbodun, professor of psychiatry at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria; Dr Nick Westcott, director of the Royal African Society; and Dr Julian Eaton of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
(Picture: Young man hiding his face; Credit: BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Manuela Saragossa. Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. In this edition, what it's like to suffer from a mental illness in Africa. |
| 0:10.9 | If you're lucky, they would channel you to the mental health nurse. And then if you're lucky, she'll be able to make the diagnosis and give the treatment. |
| 0:20.0 | But you're saying it's all down to luck at the moment. |
| 0:22.1 | It's all down to luck. |
| 0:23.3 | We hear from the professionals trying to change that. |
| 0:26.3 | Mental health is key to development. |
| 0:28.7 | We say our children's mental health is our continent's future wealth. |
| 0:35.1 | That's all here in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:42.3 | Mental health hasn't exactly been a priority when it comes to public health policy in Africa. |
| 0:48.4 | Add to that widespread stigma across the continent and the picture for those suffering from a mental |
| 0:53.3 | illness there is pretty grim. |
| 0:56.1 | A couple of snapshots, 75% of mentally ill South Africans have no access to psychiatric or therapeutic |
| 1:02.5 | care, so says the United Nations. And of the 40 to 60 million Nigerians suffering from a mental |
| 1:09.2 | health issue, only 10% have access to care. |
| 1:12.6 | That's according to the World Health Organization. |
| 1:15.3 | Things are changing, though. |
| 1:17.4 | So what do we do? |
| 1:19.1 | We need to build the capacity of our medical doctors. |
| 1:38.7 | Those leading the charge were here at a conference in London, organised by the Royal African Society and the Centre for Global Mental Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. |
| 1:46.2 | Among them, Dr. Florence Byngana, an advisor for mental health and substance abuse at the WHO Regional Office in Africa. Africa is a huge and very, very diverse continent, complicated by like HIV |
| 1:53.5 | AIDS and conflicts. We've got diabetes and hypertension and TB malaria. So it's difficult to address |
| 2:00.8 | mental health with all these things going |
... |
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