Food insecurity impacts mental health illnesses in Northern Uganda
GULU– Mental health experts have linked the resurgence of mental illnesses in Northern Uganda to food insecurity as people struggle to provide for their families.
Gulu Regional Referral Hospital which serves Acholi Sub-region and part of Lango Sub-region, as well as Kiryandongo district in Bunyoro Sub-region, has seen rising cases of patients seeking treatment for mental illnesses.
The record from Gulu Regional Referral Hospital Psychiatric shows a progressive number of patients seeking treatment in the facility which is an increment of 10 percent of the disease conditions.
The facility receives more than 400 patients on a monthly basis while 54 percent of the patients are males aged between 20 and 50 and females aged 18 and 45 accounts for 46 percent respectively.
A physiatrist officer attached to Gulu Mental Health Unit, Alfred Droti explained that most of the households in the region are battling with food scarcity due to low harvests.
The underlined conditions in the households are characterised by depression and anxiety, the factors that account for mental health resurgence in the region according to health experts.
According to Droti, the youth have resorted to high alcohol consumption and drug abuse due to frustration as the majority are unable to provide for their families.
Meanwhile, the treatment of a single patient costs more than a million shillings, which the government isn’t providing to the Hospital. Naltrexone, one of the most expensive drugs used for the treatment of mental health patients, tentatively costs the government Shs 650,000.
The drug is used for treating patients with alcohol use disorders since it helps to reduce the rewarding effects and craving for alcohol. It also decreases the relapse rate in patients but a patient with the condition is required to undergo treatment for three months, which can cost the government more than a million shillings to procure drugs.
The hospital received 9061 patients with different mental health conditions in 2020 and there has been a general number of patients visibly seen in each of the streets in Gulu battling the conditions.
While Psychiatrists in the region called for research on the contents of the alcohol being consumed in the country, in 2016, Gulu district local government passed an ordinance regulating the sale and consumption of alcohol.
The ordinance only banned the sale of sachet waragi but allows the producers to repackage it in glass bottles of not less than 250 milliliters.
Freddy Odong, a Psychologist with Mental Health Sheffield Partnership noted that the number of people battling depression in the region is worrying which has been made worse as they opt for high alcohol consumption and drug abuse.
https://thecooperator.news/diminishing-presence-of-granaries-a-recipe-for-food-insecurity-in-teso/
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