By Cosmus Mzungu

As a clinician specializing in counselling psychology, I often find it unfortunate whenever I encounter an individual who is subjected to inhumane treatment because of their mental health condition. This is often because, such a person is in that state simply because they have not received the right treatment.

This was the case for 35-year-old Charo (not his real name) who had been kept in chains by his parents for close to four years, as they claim that they needed a way to ‘keep him safe’ as they went out in search of daily bread. Their fear, which is common among such parents, was that if left free, he would either have harmed himself or been harmed by community members.

Courtesy of our ability to provide home based care, thanks to the Inclusive Communities project, we were able to diagnose Charo with psychosis and place him on the correct treatment, and also conducted counselling sessions with his family members. I thank God and I am proud that in just a couple of months, he is now doing great to an extent that his parents no longer chain him up. They are confident enough to leave him free and unattended as they go out in search of their daily bread and other activities.

45-year-old Yusuf (not his real name) was also on a similar boat. He had been neglected by his family for years as they felt he wouldn’t amount to much because of his condition. They held on to the mistaken belief that he was bewitched. Fortunately for Yusuf, one of his family members learnt about the mental health clinic we had established here at Gongoni Health Centre and brought him for treatment. We diagnosed him with schizophrenia and immediately put him on treatment, and also began counselling sessions with his caregiver.

I am proud to note that a couple of months down the line, he has registered tremendous improvement. Presently, he and his wife have a small second-hand clothes business and he helps his wife in selling these clothes.    

Services are now accessible

It is worth noting that before the Inclusive Communities project, services were not this accessible. I would often be forced to refer such clients to Malindi Sub – County Hospital or Kilifi County Referral Hospital because we did not have mental health services here at Gongoni Health Centre and the whole of Magarini Sub County at large. This was too expensive not only because of the distances of between 30 to 100 kilometres that clients had to cover in order to get the services but also the cost of treatment.

Courtesy of this program, we have established a mental health clinic at Gongoni Health Centre, where we attend to between 20 to 30 clients during clinic days which are scheduled once a week. Services here are offered free of charge. The project has also enabled us make house calls for clients unable to get to the clinic for various reasons such as neglect by their family members, defaulters, and referrals from Community Health Promoters (CHPs).

The project has eased our ability to make follow ups with our clients and significantly increased the number of clients seeking for and accessing services in Magarini Sub County. The common mental health conditions we have so far attended to include psychosis, schizophrenia and depression, and closely related, epilepsy and dementia. 

In addition to mental health conditions, our clinic also handles diabetes and hypertension since clients with such chronic conditions require frequent counselling sessions for their conditions and drugs related complications plus drug adherence which have been proved to be a challenge to most of our clients. In situations where we encounter an illness outside non-communicable diseases that we cannot handle, we refer such cases to Level 3 and 4 facilities which are the Sub County and County Hospitals respectively.

Plenty still needs to be done

I fully appreciate the gains that we have made in the mental health space courtesy of this project and support from our County Government, and I am excited about the future. It would be great if we could extend the benefits, we have attained here at Gongoni, to other parts of Magarini Sub County. Since this is a vast sub county with over 40 Government facilities and covers three quarters of Kilifi County geographically, mental health service provision needs to be enhanced in more community units especially in hard-to-reach areas.

We also need to build the capacity of more community health promoters on mental health, broaden community outreach and integrate mental health into primary health care.

We look forward to our continued partnership with Basic Needs Basic Rights Kenya and CBM Global in this endeavour. Thanks a lot once again for your continued support.