EASTERN Cape Department of Health MEC, Nomakhosazana Meth, called for the stigma associated with mental health to be removed in society as the province commemorates World Health Day.
She was addressing over 200 guests who packed the Mthatha Health Resource Centre lecture hall during the mental health annual lecture.
She said that one could not talk about human rights and leave out mental health.
According to her, there was still a stigma associated with mental illnesses, especially in black communities.
“This is one of the biggest challenges that we are still faced with today when it comes to mental illness. As we continuously strive to improve mental health services, we must also ensure that we demystify the myths around mental health. With treatment, people with mental health challenges are able to play active roles in society,” said Meth.
She said that her department had its first strategic planning and policy review workshop in August this year, with contributions from relevant stakeholders.
“Strengthen community-based services to improve early identification of mental illness and improve community living areas. Prioritise the appointment and functioning of District Mental Health Specialist Teams.”
Meth said that she had also appointed the Mental Health Review Board to strengthen the department’s adherence in maintaining and upholding the rights of mental health users in the department. The department took the recommendations of the health ombudsman seriously and addressed the majority of them.
“To strengthen leadership, we have appointed a director for mental health and registered counsellors. On assumption of office in the department I adopted mental health as my special programme. It is for this reason that I appointed Mental Health Registered counsellors and used my powers to create these posts additional to the organogram.”
According to her, out of 31 posts, 26 Mental Health Registered Counsellors had already been appointed.
She said that others had declined the offers, but she was confident that she would soon fill the five remaining posts.
Meth added that since the appointments were made, there had been an improvement in access to psychological services by communities.
“In less than a year, registered counsellors in all districts have seen 987 clients and 28 public education events, increasing access to psychological services and possible prevention of mental illness.
“This is a story of good progress, because for the longest time we did not have registered counsellors. We recently appointed the Chief Executive Officer at Fort England and Tower hospitals.”
She said that she wanted screening of mental health patients at Primary Health Care (PHC) and district level improved through deployment of registered counsellors in clinics and re-capacitation of the clinical personnel on Mental Health Programmes and direct highly skilled advanced mental health nurses from specialised hospitals to serve at PHC level where they will diagnose and treat patients strengthening the services for Child and Adolescent mental health.
-ISSUED BY DoH.
