Mental health common among youth due to drug abuse

Mental illness is prevalent among the youth because of the tendency to abuse alcohol and drugs, says health minister Joy Phumaphi.

Addressing a kgotla meeting in Francistown's Satellite Location on Saturday, she said alcohol and drug abuse, HIV/AIDS financial stress, road accidents and post-natal stress were major contributory factors to mental illness.

She appealed to parents to teach children about the dangers of alcohol and drug abuse, adding that the best way of getting a positive response was to lead by example.

The minister said mental illness in HIV-positive people was induced by those who stigmatised and even ostracised the infected.

Phumaphi appealed to residents to support the mentally ill by giving them love, respect and employing those who have recovered.

She lamented that Batswana were losing their respect for one another because they either shunned the mentally ill or ridiculed them.

She said mental patients had the right to be employed and to benefit from government assistance schemes.

On HIV/AIDS, she complained that people were not assisting government in fighting the scourge.

Government, she said, had introduced programmes such as Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission, anti-retroviral therapy and established testing centres but public response continued to be disappointing.

On labour relations, she said workers had the right to strike if they were aggrieved and had exhausted all the channels of resolving issues.

However, she said members of certain institutions, such as the Botswana Defence Force and Botswana Police Service, were not allowed to go on strike.

Residents were informed that the constitution permits any employee, whether in the public service or the private sector, to join a union.

In their comments, residents said they were afraid of joining unions because they might lose their jobs.

They complained about the shoddy treatment of patients at Nyangabgwe Hospital and poor state of cleanliness there.

Another complaint from the residents was about unlicensed trading in liquor and called for stern measures to be taken against the culprits.

They expressed fears that the outbreak of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) might reach Botswana and asked for all the necessary precautions to be taken.

In response, Phumaphi said the Ministry of Health had launched an education campaign to sensitise people about SARS and that the infected would be treated. BOPA

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Revision date: 12 December 2007
Last revised by Amalia K. Gagarina, M.S., R.D.