Difficulty of getting treatment for depression patients
by Dr Mohamed Sheikh Omar, Health and Nutrition Program Manager, Action Contre La Faim
Somalia health infrastructure has fallen since the central government collapse. Since then humanitarian actors have given little attention to delivering mental health services when delivering care to the affected people, while neglecting those people who are in need of mental health services, as these people lost their homes and livelihood due to war. Depression was one of the major mental health problems that many Somali people faced during and after the civil war that lead to severe consequences such as broken marriage, khat chewing for relief, health and nutrition problems and eventually disability and death.
A few Somali personnel started to rebuild the mental health from the ashes to something in which they can provide assistance to their communities and to prevent the catastrophic events that depression can lead to if not treated well. On the other hand some international non-governmental organization have started to integrate the primary health care with mental health by training their staff on mhGAP.
Dr. Faduma Abdi Maow, in charge of Laasareti Mental Hospital, said, “Depression patients’ help-seeking is little at the first stages of the illness, they usually come with other complications like bipolar disorder, drug addiction and schizophrenia sometimes, but unfortunately if the patient who need inpatient service is female, we don’t have a place to admit her – due to security issues, unlike with the men.”
According to Dr. Mustaf Habeb, “lack of sufficient knowledge, stigma and discrimination that people with mental health disease get, means that people will not come to health facilities to seek help. On the other hand people don’t recognize depression as a disease, the only time they seek treatment is when it is combined with bipolar disorder.”
There is a huge gap in seeking treatment for depression; communities don’t recognize it as a disease, some may say he/she is isolating him/her self from the world. There is poor diagnosis since qualified personnel are few, which increases the risk of suffering and potentially causes disability and death if help doesn’t come at the right time in the right place.
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