The Ministry of Health and Child Care has launched the strategic plan for Mental Health Services (MHS) that is set to embrace the Friendship Bench Model to ensure people living mental disorders attended to at community level.
The deputy director for Mental Health Services, Chido Rwafa said at least 10 percent of Zimbabwe’s 14 million+ population suffers from some form of mental illness mainly due to the harsh economic situation being experienced by the country.
“There are only 15 practicing psychiatrists in the country of which they are 15 million patients national wide which leaves us at a ratio of one as to a million. That means most of the patients don’t get to see the doctors,” Rwafa said.
The Ministry included the Friendship Bench Model in the Mental Health strategic plan (2019-2023) as a low cost psychological intervention for depression, anxiety and other common mental health problems.
Professor Dixon Chibanda, an associate at the University of Zimbabwe Clinical Research Centre and director of the African Mental Health Research Initiative, developed the Friendship Bench approach in 2006 as part of his Masters in Public Health field work. He was also the principal investigator in the trial of the approach in Zimbabwe. He is now leading the team to scale it up across the region.
“The benches are set outside each health facility, initially they were set apart, but now they are quite public, because the programme is widely accepted in the communities. Harare has more than 53 primary health care facilities with anything from one to four of these benches,” said Chibanda.
“When people come to these facilities seeking mental health services, they are screened using the Shona Symptoms Questionnaire to determine the level of mental health disorders. They are then referred to the grandmothers – lay health workers, who have been trained and are supervised by health professionals,” added Chibanda.
The Friendship Bench Model has been piloted in Mbare at the polyclinic after depression and other common mental health disorders were found to be highly prevalent in the community and among clinic attendees in the early 2000s.
In an interview with one of the mental health patients, Claudias Mukoki, he said he is grateful for having been a survivor.
“I abusing drugs and alcohol for more than 10 years and when when I broke down, I got admitted in the hospitals several times. I met Dr Chibanda and ever-since I have been living a positive life which is alcohol and drug free,” said Mukoki.
Now I have made it my priority to reach out to all those who have mental disorders to help them to be positive about life and be able to remove stigma that the community has about mental health users,” said Mukoki.
The Minister of Health and Child Care, Doctor Obadiah Moyo also expressed his concern over the victims of the cyclone Idai.
“These people were affected psychologically and need our assistance to move on since most of them are now suicidal after loosing their families to the disaster. We are arranging for counselling teams that will be deployed to the affected areas to go and assist the victims to avoid post- trauma,” said the Minister.
