Experts flag spike in mental health cases

Source: Experts flag spike in mental health cases -Newsday Zimbabwe

HEALTH experts have flagged the sharp increase in mental health breakdowns among adolescents and teenagers due to drug and substance abuse.

The concerns came as the country yesterday joined the rest of the world in commemorating World Mental Health Day.

Community Working Group on Health executive director Itai Rusike  told NewsDay that the current failure by public health facilities to treat mental health conditions was a sad reality.

“It is common that most people had mental health challenges during COVID-19 associated with stress, sadness, anxiety, loneliness and depression.

“The current situation is that the capacity of public health facilities to screen, diagnose and treat mental health conditions is currently weak as our health delivery services have been overwhelmed by drug abuse-related issues including shortage of health care workers,” he said.

Rusike added that the youths were the most affected by the mental health issues with 40% of the patients at Ingutsheni Psychiatric Hospital and other healthcare institutions being victims of  drug abuse.

 “Young people lack economic empowerment opportunities and have a lot of idle time resulting in them experimenting in harmful habits,” he said.

According to United Nations Children’s Fund, 50% of all mental health conditions start manifesting at the age of 14 years, but most cases go undetected and untreated due to the absence of proper support mechanisms in most developing countries.

Medical and Dental Private Practitioners Association of Zimbabwe president Johannes Marisa blamed the high unemployment rate for aiding substance abuse, hence causing a spike in mental health cases among the youth.

“We have all these youths who are not engaged in life activities and some of them are resorting to illicit drug use of substances such as crystal meth and marijuana. We have noted again with concern that substance induced psychosis is very prevalent at the moment with the same drugs highlighted being implicated,” he said.

 “We have limited rehabilitation space in the country and private rehabilitation is very expensive and few people can afford but people must also take advantage of free mental health drugs that are being handed out by the government and can be found at various centres,” added Marisa.