By Luminous Jannamike

ABUJA – The Federal Government has been urged to adopt alternative medicine and implement urgent mental health reforms to address Nigeria’s growing healthcare challenges.

This appeal was made during the ‘Health Talk’ seminar series held in Abuja on Thursday, themed ‘Promoting Healthy Well-being Through Alternative Medicine’.

The event featured key speakers, including Emeka Chimezie, a health advocate, and Ambassador Zainab Mohammed, a women’s rights activist.

Chimezie urged the government to explore herbal and alternative medicines as viable treatments for life-threatening diseases, citing the global shift toward such practices in developed countries.

He emphasized the need for government support in testing and promoting locally developed health solutions.

“Government should look into alternative medicine, especially for good products that work.

“Let’s test what we have. The government should support us on this journey. It’s a movement. People are dying daily due to negligence and poor lifestyle choices. With government support, we can extend lives and improve wellbeing,” he said.

Ambassador Zainab Mohammed highlighted the mental health crisis, particularly among women, linking it to issues such as Gender-Based Violence (GBV), hormonal stress, and depression. She called for the establishment of more counseling centers and increased awareness campaigns to address these challenges.

Mohammed said, “The likely solution is, we need to have a lot of counseling centers. We need to be able, like what we are doing today, creating awareness that when somebody is misbehaving, not only do we go to the church or mosque to start praying, but we need to treat what the problem is. We need to go for psychodynamic counseling. We need to look at what’s happening in the house. A dysfunctional home will produce dysfunctional children in our society today.”

Mohaed also proposed advocacy visits to the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Women Affairs to foster collaboration and establish community-based mental health centers.

“We’ll use the same platform to talk, to do advocacy visits to Ministry of Health and Ministry of Women Affairs so that they can have a synergy where we have centers at various communities,” she added.

The event was organized by Emiral Global and Abuja Women Dance, highlighting the need for inter-ministerial cooperation and grassroots interventions to tackle Nigeria’s healthcare challenges.

Stakeholders urged the government to prioritize alternative medicine and mental health reforms to improve public health outcomes and reduce preventable deaths.

This call comes amid rising concerns over the state of healthcare in Nigeria, with experts advocating for innovative solutions to address the dual crises of disease burden and mental health.