Meanwhile, stakeholders in mental health advocates have called for the urgent need to establish a national suicide prevention strategy to curb the rising menace, especially among youths in Nigeria.The Chief Executive Officer, Sparkle Foundation, Olasimbo Ojuroye, lamented that there are lots not issues with stigma and mental health, as more youths are committing suicide with the need to find a lasting solution on how suicide cases can be decriminalized to ensure victims get help on time.
Also, the Chief Executive Officer, The NOUS foundation, Lade Olugbemi lamented that there is an increase in the number of people who die by suicide, as there is need to break barriers in mental health such as, cultural, language, religiosity, institutional stigma, and community system among others.
“Another barrier is the fact that our community system is broken down. We have allowed so much westernization in place that what we used to experience in only the developed countries is what is experienced here. Everybody is self-centered not looking out for people. This is what made us as a society and all of it is broken down,” she said.
Olugbemi said the country’s legislature should develop a national suicide prevention strategy immediately to put things in check, as well as provide solutions to mental health issues before the situation gets worst.
Corroborating Olugbemi, the Deputy Director, Medical Social Service, Lagos University Teaching Hospital and Training Coordinator, Suicide Research and Prevention Initiative (SURPIN), Titi Tade, (SURPIN), estimated that three out of 10 Nigerians have mental health issues with 200 psychiatrists to cater for a population of about 200 million. She said the number of mental health personnel is inadequate to cover the whole of Nigeria, which requires finding solutions to address the issue promptly.
Tade said the World Health Organisation has recommended that each country should have a national suicide prevention strategy, which other countries have identified and implemented, with Nigeria yet to address the menace rising among its youths.
“How can we work together to identify the signs and symptoms and know which area we can work on and they refer to the right channel. If we are not consistently pushing it out there we will not develop the national suicide prevention strategy we are talking about….”
Source: Pharmatimes
