A health milestone has been achieved

Editor | Friday July 9, 2010 00:00

It is heartening to note that this facility has been provided for people that many of us ordinarily take for granted because they are generally pushed to the margins of our everyday existence.  Quite often, out of ignorance and lack of knowledge about care for people with psychiatric ailments, we tend to discriminate against them.

It is, however, pleasing that the Botswana government has been proactive in recognising the need for an institutional asylum for people with psychiatric ailments. Records show that as early as the 1930's, the colonial government had provided a psychiatric health facility in Lobatse. At independence, the Botswana government decided to carry the baton and took up psychiatric health as part of the national health plan. One of the landmarks in the development of the mental health care system was the establishment of the Mental Hospital in Lobatse.

The Sbrana Psychiatric Hospital is a demonstration of that commitment. We hope this modern facility and the staff could be used to administer care that could eventually lead to high recovery rates. As a teaching hospital, it is everyone's hope that it will also be used to train health professionals that are in demand, not only in Botswana but also in the region. The hospital could also be used as a hub in the region.The beauty that will never be missed about this hospital though, is that the Ministry of Health has been wise to name the hospital after the country's own father of psychiatry, Dr Giussipe Sbrana.  This is a fitting honour to the man who has pioneered and extended horizons in Botswana's history of psychiatry. We want to associate ourselves with the call made by the MoH, Reverend Dr John Seakgosing, who called on the Lobatse community to desist from discriminating against people with psychiatric illnesses. The efforts of the hospital to give care to its patients can only succeed if the community of Lobatse is empathetic, also giving care and support to the hospital and its patients.

If the Lobatse community and all of us do not play a part, we might just make it difficult for the health professionals to succeed where we want them to.  The building of this hospital should encourage families that have people with mental illnesses to come forward and seek professional help rather than to hide their family members under the guise that they are saving themselves social embarrassment. No doubt this hospital, which now has more beds, will ease the pressure on local clinics and hospitals. We should thank the President of Mozambique, Armando Guebuza, for having agreed to open the hospital, thereby giving it the international appeal that it needs. Indeed this is a milestone achieved.

                                                           Today's thought'Their care is more in your hands than they can offer themselves because of their impaired mental faculties.'

                                            -Reverend Dr John Seakgosing