The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Ministry of Health has been asked to support mental health and suicide public awareness campaigns aimed at addressing the burden in the country without stigmatizing victims.
Uganda is ranked 17th on the list of countries where suicide is registered as a cause of death, with 18.67 per 100,000 deaths due to suicide in Uganda.
Australia-based Stuart Raymond Kasule, a suicide prevention trainer and a mental health advocate while speaking to journalists in Kampala, said that there is a need to train health workers on how to detect mental health and suicide victims so that they can respond to them appropriately.
According to Kasule, the Ministry of Health should also encourage suicide and mental health safe talks and awareness in the public and schools so that people are equipped with information on how to fight stigma.
According to the World Health Organization- WHO report on global suicide, one person dies by suicide every 40 seconds, this means that suicide accounts for more deaths than homicides and war combined and is a leading cause of death among the youth.
According to the World Health Organization, (WHO) close to 800,000 people die by suicide every year, and for each death, there are more than 20 suicide attempts.
Kasule wants the Ministry of Health to adopt the suicide intervention and prevention models from Living Works Australia that have been proven by the World Health Organization to manage mental health and suicide worldwide.
He added that the prevention models have been evaluated to integrate into Uganda’s local and cultural behaviors so that they can benefit all Ugandans.
Dr. Hafsa Lukwata, the head of the mental health division from the Ministry of Health noted that the ministry supports decimalization of suicide to help victims of suicide from accessing the services from health centers when it is offered.
Andrew Kyamagero, a male activist noted that the absence of data to understand how many people are facing mental challenges leads to the absence of models to use to fight the occurrence.
He wants the Ministry of Health to have workable models that can be placed from the household level, village, parishes, and later to the national levels.
“In the national community health strategy there is integration, where health workers can integrate other health issues when approached by a patient. Mental health can be also discussed but many health workers can’t integrate mental health and suicide which they don’t know how to talk about,” Kyamagero stated.
He adds that mental health should be scaled to the lowest structures of the social pyramid so that everyone can get on board.
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