Medical Director, Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital, Calabar, Joe Okegbe, says mental health issues in Cross River communities can better be handled if the state government partners his institution more effectively so the state can benefit from the skilled manpower that the Psychiatric Hospital has.
Okegbe who was speaking exclusively to calitown.com in his office, was particular that government needs to also create platforms in all general hospitals in the state to cater to mental health issues when “we consider that remarkably, 70% of the nurses in the employ of the state have comprehensive psychiatric training that should be adequately deployed at the grassroot level instead of bringing all cases to Calabar, even when some of those cases can be better handled at the local centres”. Additionally, he is of the opinion that for reasons that bother on the issue of stigmatisation, most of those who cannot come to Calabar to get treatment, can better be taken care of in his proposition.
The M.D concluded by saying that, “if government does this in addition to providing utility vehicles, motorcycles and bicycles to get staff to patients, we would have succeeded in doing our concerted best to help tackle the rising number of cases we are coping with and others that have recently been identified”.
