Mental Illness In Dodoma Region Shrinks For Four Percent In Two Years -

By Staff Writer, Dodoma

MENTAL illness in Dodoma region has decreased from
35 percent to at least 31 percent during a period between 2020 and 2022, according
to the relevant statistics.

The encouraging revelation has been unveiled by the Acting
Dodoma Regional Medical Officer (RMO), Dr. Nelson Bukuru in his remarks during
observation of this year’s World Mental Health Day, held in Dodoma Capital
City.

Mental illness, also called mental health disorders,
refers to a wide range of mental health conditions — disorders that affect your
mood, thinking and behavior. Examples of mental illness include depression,
anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, eating disorders and addictive behaviors.

He said the development has been propelled by a
substantial increase of the relevant health workers and the experts at the
Dodoma-based Mirembe Mental Health National Hospital (MNHMH), the development
which resulted into smooth metamorphosis in the service delivery towards the
patients in question.

Together with that, Dr. Bukuru added that there’s a
potential increase in the rolling out of key awareness towards the public over
how best to cheat the ‘disturbing’ mental
health disorder.

However, despite the significant decrease in the
spread of the illness across the region, Dr Bukuru informed that the region,
which shelters the country capitals
leads for having many epilepsy patients than any part of the country.

“Currently, Dodoma has at least 19,000 epilepsy
patients, equivalent to 79 percent of the population that have been affected by
the seizure disorder illness across the country,” he unveiled.

Speaking for his part, the Deputy Health Minister,
Dr Godwin Mollel challenged the health workers at the Mirembe Mental Health
National Hospital to work diligently and dispense the right therapies to the patients of mental illness.

Dr. Mollel, who graced the event to mark this year’s
World Mental Health Day urged the health workers to be very vigilant at
identifying the patients at different stages of the mental disorders and
serving them accordingly.

“The government will continue to equip the hospital
(Mirembe) with the needed modern equipment and medicines in order to allow the
facility to heighten its service delivery since it receive the patients with
mental health complication from across the country,” the minister informed.

And the Acting Permanent Secretary (PS) in the
Ministry of Health, Dk Saitore Laizer expressed that the parent ministry will
stand at the forefront to scale up campaigns on public awareness in order to
further educating the citizens around the country over how to refrain from the
diseases.

As per the 2019 data from the World Health
Organization (WHO), one in every eight people
in the world has mental health issues, whereby In Tanzania, five out of 100,000
people have committed suicide out of mental health problems such as anxiety,
depression, anger and drug abuse in the last five years, statistics have shown.

According to the health experts, there are different
forms of mental illness, including mood
disorders (such as depression or bipolar disorder) anxiety disorders, personality disorders,
psychotic disorders (such as schizophrenia), eating disorders, trauma-related disorders (such as
post-traumatic stress disorder) as well as substance abuse disorders.

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