Mirembe launches mental health community outreach

Dodoma. Mirembe National Mental Health Hospital (MNMHH) has on Tuesday, August 2, launched community outreach to promote awareness to the public on matters concerning mental health.

The campaign aims at initiatives undertaken to improve the mental wellbeing of people from their areas of residents, schools and workplaces with proper understanding about mental stability.

Addressing the public during the session, the head of mental health department and training at Mirembe Dr. Innocent Mwombeki said the initiative had been undertaken out of the decrease in number of patients who went to the hospital for mental medications.

‘’ At first patients were the ones coming to the hospital for medication, now we are reaching out to them for medication. We have targeted to start promoting the mental health awareness in Dodoma through various activities such as a marathon that is to be held on September 10, the World Mental Health Day,’’ he said.

The success of initiated efforts is to bring light to social stability and help in mitigating crimes in the community.

Insp. Verediana Mlimba said that it will be a preliminary step to assess social whereabouts of people with such challenges.

‘’ Everything starts from how a person thinks. Before committing any crime a person starts to have malicious thoughts and intentions of hurting others. Through this program, people will be able to detect any behavioral changes from those who intend to hurt them as a way of protecting themselves.’’ She said.

The increase in number of brutal killings and physical abuse has been much associated with a mental breakdown that people have been experiencing in life as explained by experts.

Roselyn Malenya, a psychologist from Milembe Hospital they have been receiving several cases linked to physical harassment and brutal killings especially amongst couples due to mental breakdown.

“The social changes of stereotypes has led to confusion and conflicts amongst men and women. It’s about time we take action to that so long as the community is willing to offer a hand in the process we can overcome that.’’ She said that.

On behalf of the government, the coordinator of mental health from the ministry of health Dr. Erasmus Mndeme applauded the initiatives taken by the hospital.

“Instead of staying at the hospital waiting for patients, it was a good move of interacting with the public to understand more about what caused them to experience such mental breakdown.”