To sustain the efforts of the rejuvenation of Nigeria’s health sector and health security, the Federal government will commence the training of Frontline health workers in the primary health care facilities nationwide next, the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Ali Pate has disclosed.
Accordingly, to sustain an all-inclusive health sector rejuvenation, the Federal government launched the National Mental Health Policy and the National Suicide Prevention Strategic Framework 2023-2030 in Abuja on Wednesday during the Ministerial Roundtable on Mental Health organized by the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare towards mainstreaming mental health into universal health coverage (UHC) as it diligently implementing the National Health Act, 2021.
Records have shown that one in every four Nigerians has some sort of mental challenge while one put 10 gets referred for treatment.
Pate, while launching the two documents said, “The unveiling of these two important documents is coming from the back of a law that has been upgraded National Mental Health Act, 2021, to mainstream mental health, to prioritize it, to make it different levels and to bring all stakeholders together, so that our people have better quality, preventive, curative and rehabilitative interventions to improve their mental health and wellbeing is very much consistent with our policy parameters”.
Represented by the Director, of Public Health, Chukwuma Anyaike, the Minister disclosed that plans have been concluded for the capacity training of 120,000 frontline health workers in primary healthcare centers (PHCs) across the country.
According to him, in line with the government’s agenda for the sector, being the first point of call, the PHCs which are in every ward across the country, the government is determined to make them serve their primary purpose.
“For all the diseases that form the component of primary healthcare, we are going to develop an integrated training protocol for the healthcare workers at the primary healthcare center, so that any health personnel at the PHC should be able to handle mental health, tuberculosis, malaria, HIV, viral hepatitis, diarrhea, you know all the diseases entities that had to do immunization protecting women of reproductive age and also for the children”, he stated.
However, Dr. Toyin Saraki, the wife of the former President of the Senate, Sen. Bukola Saraki, and Founder of the Wellbeing Foundation Africa, emphasized the need for the private sector, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), and other critical stakeholders to collaborate with the government for a holistic approach to address mental health issues in the country.
She said funding, access to care, stigma, lack of support, and health workforce training are gaps that are militating against mental health issues in the country, noting, “What we want done, is to normalize health services into the standard national provisions for health services.
“What we are asking for now is for mental health checks to be standard from the primary health level to the secondary, Community, school levels, and workplaces.
“We should be treating mental health the same way we treat diabetes, malaria, anemia, and the rest”.
On her part, the Minister of Youth Development, Jamila Bio Ibrahim said her Ministry is collaborating with the Health Ministry on how to leverage the PHCs network across the country to reach the youth and adolescent demographics with the programs and policies of the government.
She said mental health is a prioritized subject in her Ministry and she is set to introduce a new Department mainly to address mental health as it relates to the youths.