APN urges govt to recruit more psychiatric doctors
CHIGOZIE AMADI
Nigeria currently has less than 250 psychiatrists to cater to the mental health needs of her teeming population estimated to be over 216 million, the Association of Psychiatrists in Nigeria revealed.
This is a far cry from at least 21,600 psychiatrists that should reasonably serve the population.
Speaking with our correspondent on Tuesday, the President of APN, Prof Taiwo Obindo, said Nigeria is meant to have one psychiatrist to 10,000 population but has less than 250 psychiatrists.
Since Nigeria has an estimated population of 216 million, according to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs data, this implies that one psychiatrist will need to attend to about 864,000 Nigerians.
Obindo noted, “We have some qualified psychiatrists but they have yet to be employed presently. In my centre, we have two of them who are qualified and yet to be employed.”
According to him, the mental health policy stipulates that every federal medical centre, general hospital, and specialist centre should have a mental health department or at least a unit.
He also said the policy calls for integrating mental health into primary health care.
“So, that calls for more mental health practitioners. The way we offer mental health services to people is actually too low because we don’t have the experts to attend to them. If you don’t employ them, if you don’t improve the remuneration, then you are not encouraging them to stay.
“Outside the country, we were told that we have too many (doctors), whereas the number of psychiatrists is possibly less than 250 in the country because doctors are pulling and moving in groups,” he said.
The don added that the mental health treatment gap is wide.
“There are departments where more than half of the staff have left. When discussing the brain drain, we don’t limit it to psychiatrists alone. Even the clinical psychologists and the psychiatric nurses are leaving. So, we need to look at it broadly. As we all know, and I’m sure you’re aware, less than two out of 10 people who have mental health conditions can access adequate care, and that’s a big gap, we call it the mental health gap.
“If you go to many general hospitals besides Lagos State, you probably may not have a psychiatrist on board, you probably may not have a clinical psychologist there, and those who have mental health challenges cannot access care. Most of the facilities that we have are located in the urban area, those in rural areas have to travel to access care,” he said.
