FG reviews mental health policy

By Chinyere Amalu

ABUJA—The Federal Government has reviewed the 1999 mental health policy responsible for regulating the practice and management of mental health in Nigeria.

The review would enhance the provision of access and appropriate care for people who have mental health disorders in Nigeria and also make adequate provisions for its implementation in the national health budget.

Also reviewed in the policy is the definition of the roles the traditional and religious healers played in the proper care and support given to the mentally ill people put in their care.

Head of communicable and non-communicable diseases of the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH), Dr. Micheal Anibueze, who disclosed this weekend at the World Psychiatric Association’s (WPA) Regional meeting, said presently Nigeria is using the law inherited by from the colonial masters.

His words, “the law in use presently in Nigeria was the one we inherited from our colonial masters which is the British asylum law. This means that if you have mental illness your people can decide to take you to an asylum and dump you there to die. This law is not applicable to the Nigerian society”.