HOW IS MENTAL HEALTH BEING SUPPORTED IN AFRICA?

Africa is home to 1.4 billion people, yet many of its ›4 countries have little to no budget for mental health services. To make matters worse, trained psychiatrists are opting to leave the continent for better pay and support systems.

With a suicide rate above the global average and an estimated 116 million people affected by mental health conditions, professionals in Africa have their work cut out for them – especially with only one psychiatrist for every ›00,000 people. To put that in perspective, the UK has one psychiatrist for roughly every ›,100.

Instead, local initiatives look to what are called lay health workers: community members trained in basic talking therapies, like cognitive behavioural therapy, and taught about common mental health problems. In Zimbabwe, these people sit in parks, shopping centres and community spaces and lend an ear to those in need. Called the Friendship Bench programme, the initiative has now spread elsewhere.

Yet stigma can still prevent people from seeking support. There is an association between mental illness and evil spirits, so when problems plague multiple generations it’s believed to be caused by a curse over the family, not genetics. In some regions, one barrier to support is that the local language doesn’t even have words for illnesses like depression, anxiety and schizophrenia – they all fall under the same term: ‘madness’.

Breaking down these barriers to mental health support is a priority for African health ministers. In August ➤0➤➤, they met at the World Health Organization’s Regional Committee for Africa to produce a new strategy for mental healthcare, which hopes to see better funding, reporting and legislation by ➤030.