Prioritise mental health – professor

AS SOUTH Africans prepare for the implementation of the National Health Insurance (NHI), an appeal has been made for mental health to be prioritised in the package of services as “psychiatric conditions” continue to soar in the country.

Professor Inge Peterson, from University of KwaZulu-Natal, who is attending an international meeting on mental health in Cape Town this week, warned against the economic meltdown that has led to “psychiatric disorders, including depression and anxiety”.

According to Peterson, not only were these mental disorders “highly stigmatised and had a negative impact on sufferers’ productivity”, but their “effects caused losses that ran into billions of rand”.

“In South Africa, severe depression and anxiety disorders are associated with a significant reduction in earnings for both employed and unemployed adults living with these conditions whereby the estimated lost income is about R67 000 per adult per year,” she said.

Peterson said given the volume of adults affected by mental health in the country, the total annual cost of the psychiatric disorder burden to the economy amounted to about R50 billion – in contrast to the estimated R820 million annual government spending on mental health. “It is vital that mental health is included in the core package of services funded by the NHI,” she said.

South Africa is currently rolling out the first phase of NHI.