Liberia’s Mental Health Care: a Crucial Need for Improvement
Liberia’s Mental Health Care: A Crucial Need for Improvement
By Ernest S. Maximore
INTRODUCTON
Liberia, a country with 3.5 million population has only one mental specialist, Dr. Benjamin Harris and one psychiatrist hospital, E.S. Grant Hospital, which is not even a public hospital. It is practically nonexistent because of little or no support: wreck facility, lack of more psychiatrists and outpatient service dysfunctional. This is a gross disproportion to the increasing mental health related illnesses budding in a country where citizens suffered 14 years of civil war with increasing post war traumatic mental health problems.
It important to note that Liberia is a country whose citizens experienced 14 years of fratricidal war punctuated by an ad hoc, improper and short term government policy on demobilization and rehabilitation process of over 60 thousands combatants without a defined therapy for victims. With mental health care system practically non-existent and the traditional belief that mental health illness is caused by demonic or supernatural forces, the need for rigorous, efficient and effective mental health policy and program cannot be overemphasized.
Status of Liberia’s Mental Health Care The World Health Organization (WHO) defines mental health as a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, able to cope with the normal stresses of life and can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community. In this positive sense, WHO avers, mental health is the foundation for individual well-being and the effective functioning of a community. Mental health is an essential part of health; and it is an incontestable fact that there is no health without mental health. The Liberian Governments yesterday and today cannot pride herself, if there is any glory it is opting to get, on better health care when the troubling concern of no better mental health mechanism and
By Ernest S. Maximore
INTRODUCTON
Liberia, a country with 3.5 million population has only one mental specialist, Dr. Benjamin Harris and one psychiatrist hospital, E.S. Grant Hospital, which is not even a public hospital. It is practically nonexistent because of little or no support: wreck facility, lack of more psychiatrists and outpatient service dysfunctional. This is a gross disproportion to the increasing mental health related illnesses budding in a country where citizens suffered 14 years of civil war with increasing post war traumatic mental health problems.
It important to note that Liberia is a country whose citizens experienced 14 years of fratricidal war punctuated by an ad hoc, improper and short term government policy on demobilization and rehabilitation process of over 60 thousands combatants without a defined therapy for victims. With mental health care system practically non-existent and the traditional belief that mental health illness is caused by demonic or supernatural forces, the need for rigorous, efficient and effective mental health policy and program cannot be overemphasized.
Status of Liberia’s Mental Health Care The World Health Organization (WHO) defines mental health as a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, able to cope with the normal stresses of life and can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community. In this positive sense, WHO avers, mental health is the foundation for individual well-being and the effective functioning of a community. Mental health is an essential part of health; and it is an incontestable fact that there is no health without mental health. The Liberian Governments yesterday and today cannot pride herself, if there is any glory it is opting to get, on better health care when the troubling concern of no better mental health mechanism and