A Federal lawmaker from Rivers State, Hon.Uchechukwu Nnam-Obi says there is a need to address what he described as the Rising Cases of Mental Health in Nigeria.
Obi, who made this known during plenary on Thursday, was reacting to a report by the World Health Organization that 3 out of every 10 Nigerians are mentally sick.
He stated that the statistics are troubling and is likely to degenerate due to the lack of legal framework on mental health in the country.
Part of his statement reads,
The increase in cases of depression is traceable to multifactorial inter and intrapersonal issues which leads to suicidal death in the country and this requires urgent attention.
According to the World Health Organization statistics, over twenty million Nigerians are currently suffering from various degrees of mental illness or disorder without psychiatric health care.
3 out of 10 Nigerians have one form of mental illness or the other, presently there is no mental health legislation in Nigeria. However, the Nigerian mental health policy is the only framework that has access to mental healthcare, dealing with mental and neurological disorders in Nigeria, discouraging stigmatization against persons with mental disorders and has institutionalized standards for Psychiatric practice.
Nigeria has only 130 Psychiatrists with over 20 million citizens suffering from mental disorders.
