Buchanan, Grand Bassa County – The limited dissemination of proper facts and information about mental illness to the public is one major factor impeding mental health services to people with mental infirmity in Grand Bassa County, according to two mental health clinicians at the Liberian Government Hospital (LGH) in Buchanan.
The Clinicians also want traditional healers in the county to be trained about mental illness. This, they said, will make significant impact on the provision of health care and treatment of patients.
Over the last three months, there have been regular supply of mental health drugs at the main government hospital in the county, but Leonie Taylor, Nursing Directress and mental health clinician at the hospital, said there are constraints in treating people with mental illnesses in the county.
“I think it’s because people are not really getting the information and the people do not really understand mental health,” Taylor explained.
“So they prefer seeking spiritual or herbal treatment; people don’t consider mental illness as a hospital related problem.”
However, Taylor said they treat over 20 patients – mainly epilepsy, depression and psychosis – monthly at the LGH, putting epilepsy as the most treated case at the hospital.
Rhoda Klon has worked as a mental health clinician for over three years
The hospital relies on these patients to spread the good news about the available mental health services at the facility.
“Those that come here for treatment – when we treat them by giving them pills, they carry the information to the others,” she told a FrontPageAfrica reporter in Buchanan City.
But she agrees it is not making major improvements on the number of mentally ill people in the county. FrontPage Africa was unable to determine the number of people with mental illness in the county.
Regular supply of mental health drugs to the hospital has improved over the last three months, although drugs supply has been a frequent problem at the hospital.
Additionally, the health center has made strides in setting up a separate space to deal exclusively with mentally ill patients, and Taylor stressed that it has dignified patients who are often concerned about privacy.
“It is important because we need privacy for these people and so some people (who) don’t want to be among the other people are treated and talk to about their treatment,” she said.
Despite the ‘minor improvement’, as Taylor puts it, communicating facts and information to the community about mental health and how it can be treated is a problem. And her colleague, Rhoda Klon, complains that getting patients to the hospital is challenging as well.
Rhoda suggests that working with traditional healers and religious (pray band) healers can help bridge the gap and will enhance the turnout of mentally ill patients at the hospital.
“Some of the clients actually believe in the traditional healers and you can’t take them away from the traditional healers, so you have to talk to them which is very difficult,” she said.
Lamenting further on the challenges, Rhoda decry the maltreatment of many mental ill people, who she said, are shackled at several praying houses.
“There are churches that tied up patients, saying that evil spirit is attacking these patients,” she said, while suggesting – “We can go to these churches and tell them that they do not have to tie them and we can work with them while giving the medication…; I think the both can work together.”
Miss Klon is confident that training traditional healers about mental health will help them understand and know how to deal with mental illness, suggesting that integrating biomedicines and herbal activities will make significant impact on Liberia’s mental health care services.
“We even want to appeal to Carter Center Mental Health Program to encourage the traditional healers to go for training…; this will make great help because when we work together we can make improvements,” she said.
There are four mental health clinicians assigned at the main referral health facility in Grand Bassa, while another one is assigned in District Four – rural Grand Bassa.
The Carter Center Mental Health Program has been leading the drive to improve mental health care services in Liberia by training medical practitioners in the country.
Twenty one clinicians specializing in child and adolescent mental health were recently trained by the Carter Center’s Mental Health Program in partnership with the Liberian government.
Before the training ended in August this year, by May 2015 there were 144 mental health clinicians trained to work in primary care clinics and hospitals across all 15 counties to provide much needed care for patients with mental illness.
LGH Nursing Directress, Taylor said the gap is still wide and doesn’t provide the chance for mental ill people across Grand Bassa County to have access to the services.
The lack of transportation coupled with enormous challenges health workers face in rural communities is often hindering health care delivery in these communities, and Taylor revealed that the lack of transportation and other logistics is making it difficult to make regular trips to these areas and serve other patients.
“I think assigning clinicians across the districts will help improve the services across the entire county because right now mental health services in this county are kind of stagnated,” she said.
And Rhoda adds: “We need to get to go in the districts (but) getting there is a problem, but we really need to carry the message out by doing outreach, community awareness, radio programs, drama and other things.”
According to Carter Center, the average number of mental health clinicians per county (excluding Montserrado County) is seven, but the unavailability of clinicians across Grand Bassa County is another hurdle.
