By LUKOYE ATWOLIMore by this AuthorLast week, the government and several partners organised the first national mental health conference to review the state of mental health in Kenya and to make commitments aimed at improving the situation. While numerous presentations were made, what was important in this meeting was the overwhelming commitment by government officials to push forward the national mental health agenda. This commitment reflects a renewed focus on mental health that was triggered by the President’s Madaraka Day directive to the Ministry of Health to develop policies to tackle mental health problems. For a long time, we have agitated, mostly in vain, for increased attention to the mental health of our people. For a long time, we have neglected the need to train, recruit and deploy adequate numbers of mental health workers, to allocate resources for mental health research and to establish mental heath services across the length and breadth of our country.

Source: Daily Nation November 24, 2019 01:52 UTC