(The picture is of a coffin; for those that couldn't afford the real thing in their lifetime; this is a very interesting practice in many countries including Ghana, but not necessarily the most popular choice of a coffin).
I initially started writing up an entry about mental health as discussed in class, but changed my mind when I received news about the death of someone very close to me. All of a sudden he became one of the statistics that we've discussed in class: global road traffic injury mortality. I started thinking about mental health as concerns death and the way it can affect the people of a community. When a person dies of chronic disease or some kind of preventable disease, we tend to blame the person; afterall it was preventable. When a child dies because of mother-child transmission of HIV, we experience different emotions; what did the child do to deserve such a death.
Global health has to include the examination of mental health in such a way that public health workers are empathetic to a wider variety of emotions. Why are the peole of South Africa depressed? How does one expect an intervention to work when the people mourn new deaths daily? How do we incorporate these distresses into our work as public health professionals. Can we overlook the fact that the parent resorted to excessive eating as a way to deal with the untimely death of a child? At the same time, we have to examine the resources available. How many of the countries stricken with the high death rates have the proper professionals that can help the people deal with the problems and emotions associated with the loss of a loved one.
I read sometime last year that in Ghana, there were less than 10 psychiatrists in the entire country. Most of the country's disturbed can be found in markets, dirty and mostly naked wandering around talking to themselves and sometimes wielding cutlasses. I had the opportunity to visit one of the places where mentally disturbed were kept. The majority were men and several proposed marriage to me. The place looked worse than a prison and it was heavily understaffed. The person we were visiting was sent to the place (called Asylum Down) because he burnt a Bible in front of someone's hair salon and he swore that he could hear God telling him to do it. When the police could not figure out what to do with him, they banished him to Asylum Down.
Mental health is unique because it cannot always been seen and it can't always be explained. However, it forms a basis on which other health stand. A person that is mentally unstable or disturbed has a better chance of being inflicted with other diseases, simply because their immune system is more compromised. That same person has a better chance of accidents, etc, simply because the person might be more distracted and less aware of their surroundings. It is imperative for us to appreciate a person's mental state in order to provide the best help to them.
Global health has to include the examination of mental health in such a way that public health workers are empathetic to a wider variety of emotions. Why are the peole of South Africa depressed? How does one expect an intervention to work when the people mourn new deaths daily? How do we incorporate these distresses into our work as public health professionals. Can we overlook the fact that the parent resorted to excessive eating as a way to deal with the untimely death of a child? At the same time, we have to examine the resources available. How many of the countries stricken with the high death rates have the proper professionals that can help the people deal with the problems and emotions associated with the loss of a loved one.
I read sometime last year that in Ghana, there were less than 10 psychiatrists in the entire country. Most of the country's disturbed can be found in markets, dirty and mostly naked wandering around talking to themselves and sometimes wielding cutlasses. I had the opportunity to visit one of the places where mentally disturbed were kept. The majority were men and several proposed marriage to me. The place looked worse than a prison and it was heavily understaffed. The person we were visiting was sent to the place (called Asylum Down) because he burnt a Bible in front of someone's hair salon and he swore that he could hear God telling him to do it. When the police could not figure out what to do with him, they banished him to Asylum Down.
Mental health is unique because it cannot always been seen and it can't always be explained. However, it forms a basis on which other health stand. A person that is mentally unstable or disturbed has a better chance of being inflicted with other diseases, simply because their immune system is more compromised. That same person has a better chance of accidents, etc, simply because the person might be more distracted and less aware of their surroundings. It is imperative for us to appreciate a person's mental state in order to provide the best help to them.
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