By Asma’u Ahmad
Worried by increasing rate of suicides and attempted suicides, Psychiatrists have called on the National Assembly to pass the Mental Health Bill into law to address mental disorders including depression.
Dr. Moruf Mustapha and Dr. Oluwadamilola Ajayi said in Lagos that a mental health law would go a long way to address the huge burden of mental disorders and prevent suicides in the country.The Psychiatric doctors jointly made the call in a statement they made available to newsmen on Tuesday. The doctors made the call against the backdrop of the March 19 suicide by a medical doctor, Dr. Allwell Orji, who jumped from the Third Mainland Bridge into the Lagos lagoon.
According to the doctors, mental health burdens are hidden and can culminate in suicide. “Mental disorders remain hidden, and as a result, such disorders are not being diagnosed and treated. It is estimated that one in four individuals globally will go through a mental health challenge in their life time.
“One of the commonest mental disorders with significant morbidity and widespread notoriety is depression. Depression is not profound sadness; it is not just an inability to cope with life experiences; it is not caused by a character or personality flaw; it is not a moral failing, neither is it a spiritual affliction.
“It is an illness, a mental illness, that may end in mortality, possibly through suicide,“ the doctors stated.
They regretted that the Mental Health Bill had yet to be passed into law since 2008. “The proposed Mental Health Bill has been bouncing back and forth between the legislative and executive arms of the Nigerian Government
since 2008. In the meantime, Nigerians make do with an antiquated law, the Lunacy Ordinance, passed in 1916.
“This outdated document provides outmoded procedures, terminologies and processes which, sadly, most states in Nigeria must use because this is the only legislative framework in mental health practice that our country recognises.
Dr. Mustapha and Dr. Ajayi said that the Nigerians had been expressing divergent views on the possible cause of the March 19 suicide but talked little about the possibility of a mental disorder. The doctors said that more than four-fifths of all suicides could be attributed to mental illness, with depression having a large proportion of the statistic.
They also decried dearth of psychiatrists in the country. They said less than 500 practicing psychiatrists in Nigeria, which has a population of more than 180 million people.
Newsmen reports that less than a week after Orji`s death, the police rescued a 58-year-old textile merchant on Lagos Island, Mrs. Titilayo Momoh, on the same bridge from jumping into the lagoon over an N18 million debt.
