NIGERIAN PSYCHIATRISTS SAYS TREASURY LOOTERS NEEDS MENTAL CHECK UP
The Psychiatric Nurses of Nigeria on Tuesday tasked called Federal Government to introduce mental check up on alleged treasury looters,a development said would serve to checkmate incessant corruption in the country.
The call was made known at the opening ceremony of the 2017 Annual Scientific Conference of the Association of Psychiatric Nurses of Nigeria,APNN, held in Abeokuta,Ogun State Capital.
Comrade Abdulrafiu Adeniji, National President of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives,said at the event that this became necessary if the corruption menace need to be adequately addressed.
He asked President Muhammadu Buhari to place premium attention to mental health,stressing thatmost of the people who steal public funds are suffering from mental illness.
Adeniji said that the scourge of corruption could be curbed in the country if the federal government pays more attention towards providing human and material resources to mental health.
His words “Government is not doing enough if today for a long time, it is only in 2013 that we have mental health act and up till now’.
Adeniji added “There is no single unit or department in the federal ministry of health that is for mental health. All they have is non-communicable disease with mental health and without having a substantive allocation of human resources and physical resources and infrastructure’.
According to him “By this, we cannot say the government is doing enough. And when you count the number of psychiatric hospitals we have as against the physical ill-health hospitals we have in the country, it is very few. The same thing goes for human resources’.
“That is why we need to call on government to do more in the area of training of manpower. Most of the corrupt politicians and civil servants that steal billions have mental problems because how are they even going to spend such money”,he stated
The association boss also backed the idea of subjecting those aspiring to occupy public offices to mental health screening, saying this would assist in determining those that are psychologically fit to administer the country.
In his own speech, Chairman Ogun State Chapter of the Association of Psychiatric Nurses of Nigeria,Abiola Ogunniyi called for measures at reducing misconceptions and stigmatization in the management of mental illness, which they said have continued to hinder the progress of their profession.
Ogunniyi, lamented that majority of people are still oblivious to many facts about mental illness despite the level of civilisation and modernisation in the country.
He, however called on government to increase mental health workers in the country as well as provide subsidy for affordable accessibility to mental health facilities.
