By Dr. Raymond Odokonyero

I was one of the two psychiatrists Makerere University conferred master of medicine degrees in the recent graduation ceremony. 

This puts the number of psychiatrists in Uganda to 30, serving a population of over 30 million people. This means it is one psychiatrist to 1,200,000 people compared to the required ratio of one psychiatrist to 100,000 people.

So sitting among a crowd of graduands brought mixed feelings of nostalgia, dread and happiness until a thought crawled into my mind and would not let go. 

Amidst the ululations, I wondered what would happen if one of the people in that audience broke down. Would the master of ceremonies announce; ‘Do we have a psychiatrist here?’. 

The answer would be no. The afflicted person would been whisked away by the Police just because mental illness is a crime according to our outdated Mental Health Act of 1964. 

Yes, mental illness is not a disease; it is a crime punishable under the law. The said individual would languish in jail for a few days before committing him to Butabika Hospital.

The mentally ill continue to suffer stigma, neglect and inappropriate treatment in Uganda. They continue to lose their property, their families, and their sources of livelihood because the law allows for it. The law states they are lunatics and imbeciles. 

They interfere with our wealth creation, they are disgusting to behold and they generally cannot breathe the same air as we do. The law that should protect all citizen has taken away their dignity. The law makes all the other evils against mental health inconsequential.

How can the Ministry of Health train more psychiatrists yet many doctors wonder how we eat among the mentally ill. The good news is that the review of the Mental Health Act is in progress. 

What mental health needs is an increment in the government allocation while diversifying the funding stream,  implementation of all the relevant plans and strategies for the improvement of mental health, increase in public awareness on mental health in order to get rid of stigma and improvement of coordination of all mental health stakeholders to ensure effective advocacy and service delivery. 

The writer is a psychiatrist, Mulago hospital