Fundong
Council has taken an engagement to tackle various forms especially extreme
cases of metal disorder in the municipality.
The information was disclosed
recently during the council session in response to worries raised as relates
the misuse of public property and space by persons living with mental orders.
According to
the Mayor of Fundong Council Denis Awoh Ndang, his council has signed a
Memorandum of Understanding MoU with the Socio-Economic Empowerment of Persons
with Disabilities SEEPD program of the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health
Services CBCHS to give care to persons living with disabilities PWDs mental
disorder inclusive within the municipality.
Talking to
the Guardian Post on the MoU, the municipal head explained that it was
important to give care and attention to PWDs mindful of the fact that with the
help of the SEEPD program it can be established that they make up to six per
cent of the community.
“We had to
sign a MoU with the SEEPD program and we thought that for our priority area we
should look at those always moving up and down during occasions and who are
looking dirty and making and making the whole community look dirty. So we fell
on these PWDs and we thought that we should do something. We are happy that
it’s yielding fruits.”
Expressing
satisfaction with the results of the partnership Mayor Awoh Ndang shared a
success story saying “we had somebody who used to move round town disturbing
everybody, but if you see him today, you can sit down and take a drink with him
and he will not disturb you.”
Corroborating
the success stories of the MoUs signed with councils in the area of tackling
mental health disorders citing the Fundong Council in particular and works done
by his program, Awa Jacques Chirac SEEPD program Manager told the Guardian Post
in his Bamenda office that “we started comprehensive community Mental Health in
2015 and Since then not fewer than 8000 people with mild moderate to severe
mental health disorder have been treated and some still on treatment.”
The CBC
Director of Health Services (DHS), Prof Tih Pius Muffih in several
interventions has maintained that that people with mental health problems are
deprived of basic human rights, stigmatized, marginalized and subjected to
emotional and physical abuse in both mental health facilities and the
community.
According to
Awa Jacque Chirac, the CBCHS has a Mental Health Service at Banso Baptist
Hospital BBH Kimbo where admissions are done and the Community Counseling
Clinic which are well-organized and meets the required standards making use of
the two Psychiatrists, seven Psychiatric Nurses, 20 Social workers and a
clinical pharmacists who manage all presented cases.
Statistics from around the world
suggest that In any given year, one in
five adults has a diagnosable mental disorder, One in 24 adults has a serious
mental illness, One in 12 has a substance use disorder, Half of all chronic mental
illness begins by age 14, People with mental illnesses are no more likely to be
violent than those without a mental health disorder. In fact, those with mental
illness are 10 times more likely to be guilty of violent crime.