What should we do to manage mental illness?

Following recent news stories on management of mentally ill patients, the public needs to cooperate with the government in order to handle mental illness in the country.
Mental and behavioural health issues constitute a spectrum of health challenges affecting all levels of social strata; the Covid-19 pandemic has sensitised populations to diverse mental health issues potentially due to direct biological effects as well as major psychosocial and economic consequences of the pandemic.
 During the Covid-19 outbreak, mental illness skyrocketed due to financial distress, unemployment; lack of sensitisation, drug abuse and ignorance from the people.

 Statistics from the Ministry of Health and the Uganda Counselling Association show that the estimated incidence of mental illnesses is massive; 35 percent of Ugandans suffer from mental illness, and 15 percent need treatment. It is likely that the incidence of mental illness and the need for treatment is getting higher.
 Only 20 percent of adolescents and children with mental illness receive therapy they need. Currently Uganda is ranked among the top six countries in Africa in rates of depressive disorders (4.6 percent study by Miller et al, 2020), while 2.9 percent live with anxiety disorders. 

According to a study by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2017 about 5.1 percent of females and 3.6 percent males are affected with mental illness. 
In my opinion, society needs to change its perception about mental illness; parents should nurture and protect their children from trauma.
 The youth should be educated on how they can understand and manage their emotions, people under a lot of stress should be supported, and stigmatising people who are mentally ill should be stopped.

 According to Dr Jackson Amone, the former commissioner of clinical services at the Ministry of Health, the first form of healing for a person confronted with a mental disorder is acknowledging that he or she has a problem and needs to be helped.
 However, in my opinion the people around them make them so uncomfortable that makes it so hard for them to accept that they are unwell, for example the society and families around the mental ill people ignore, discriminate and even call them names that are so offending and because of this there will be low chances for them to accept they are mentally  ill.
Persons with mental illness do not easily accept that they are unwell and need help, many of them are on the streets in almost every district and they are being mistreated through discrimination. Some of them are even sexually abused and this is all because the community and families are not willing to help them, even the government  does little to resolve the situation.
On that note I call upon everyone to work hand-in-hand so that we can reduce mental illness in our society.

According to Dr Juliet Nakku, the executive director of Butabika National Referral Mental Hospital, patients with mental illness are always rejected by the society yet accepting them back is one of therapies. 
The government should provide more support to Butabika National Referral Mental Hospital, which has a 550-bed capacity and more than 1,000 patients currently,  and other regional referral health facilities  in the country for better care of people with mental illness.
Molodynski et al in 2017 found out that Uganda spends 9.8 percent of its gross domestic product on health care, annually per person but just 1 percent of this goes to mental health care. 

The majority of national mental health funding goes to Butabika hospital and the government has of recently added the facility Shs2 billion . However, this is it not yet enough because the number of mentally ill people is increasing each day.  
There is need for more support from the government, the community and families. Families with these patients should always visit them  and provide basic needs.
As we are fighting to reduce mental illness in our society, whenever there is any healthcare programme like immunisation, mental health sensitisation should be included because there is no condition which does not have a mental health component, that is to say whenever someone is unwell their mental health is affected. 
I call upon everyone to participate in  ensuring that mentally ill people are well catered for. For example the media, health professionals, training institutions, religious leaders should always educate people on mental health. 

 In conclusion, the mind is one of the most powerful organs in the body, regulating the functioning of all other organs. 
When our minds are unstable they affect the whole functioning of our bodies. 
People should be aware of the consequences of mental illness and must give utmost importance to keeping the mind healthy like the way the physical body is kept healthy.

 Authored by Caroline Kanshabe, Intern in the public relations unit, Ministry of Health and a student at Uganda Christian University.