Ingutsheni boss proposes decentralisation of medication to clinics

INGUTSHENI Mental Hospital in Bulawayo has called for the decentralisation of the collection of medication for mental health patients to clinics to decongest the institution.

The hospital’s chief executive officer Nemache Mawere yesterday told NewsDay that the mental institution was overwhelmed by patients from different provinces in the Matabeleland region.

“The challenges we are facing are that many people come to Ingutsheni Hospital for their medication and treatment. It means that we have to accommodate all people from different parts of Matabeleland. There is need to decentralise collection of medicines by mental health patients to clinics to decongest the institution,” he said.

“We are also experiencing overcrowding because people are not collecting their relatives after they get better.”

The mental hospital currently houses 650 mental patients.

“People abandon their mentally-ill relatives here. We have also not recorded any new COVID-19 cases because all patients and staff have been vaccinated. We always do screening of people coming into the institution, as well as testing of new inmates,” Mawere said.

He said the mental hospital was in the process of establishing a drug rehabilitation centre after government raised concern that substance abuse was rampant in the country.

In June, President Emmerson Mnangagwa said his government would take bold measures to stamp out the scourge of drug abuse, adding that government would upgrade existing mental health institutions so that they admit drug abuse patients.