Mpumalanga is still the only province without a specialised facility for people with dual mental health issues, with such patients having to be referred to Gauteng, Health Minister Joe Phaahla said at the first day of a mental health conference in Johannesburg on Monday.
There’s been a lack of progress in Mpumalanga since 2017, when a parliamentary monitoring group wrote that the region did not have a psychiatric hospital, and that “as an intervention, the department is working to fast forward the construction of a psychiatric hospital …to hopefully commence before the end of the current financial year”.
The two-day conference was convened by the Health Department in collaboration with the Foundation for Professional Development, reports News24.
South Africa ranks among global countries with high mental health issues and has scored the lowest average on the mental health scale.
'While we have grown our numbers of human resources available for mental health services, the equitable distribution of such resources needs attention,” Phaahla said. “For example, while Western Cape and Gauteng have 50 and 72 psychiatrists working in the public sector respectively, Northern Cape and Mpumalanga, respectively have three and four psychiatrists working in the public sector.”
Phaahla said more effort was needed to improve awareness about mental health, prevention of mental illness, where to access care and reduction of the stigma, reports TimesLIVE.
“Stigma and discrimination persist and are exacerbated by lack of information. Health-seeking behaviour for mental health is negatively affected by embarrassment linked to the stigma associated with the condition.”
Added limitations, he said, was a lack of available beds and quality of infrastructure, “and this is aggravated by the scourge of drug addiction”.
Since the establishment of the mental health services grant in 2018 with the intent to increase human resources at the coalface, there has been a steady increase in the districts with specialist mental health teams, he said.
“Another area where the health system is doing well is in the availability of psychotropic medication. However, despite these policy reforms, South Africa is still facing a number of challenges in the area of mental health.
“The availability of psychiatrists needs to improve. Every mental healthcare user must receive care, treatment and rehabilitation services according to standards equivalent to those applicable to any other healthcare user.”
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