People living with HIV more prone to mental illnesses - experts

HIV/ AIDS | WORLD MENTAL HEALTH DAY 

Last Saturday (October 10, 2020) was World Mental Health Day, and unlike the previous years, this year was meant to shine a light on people living with HIV, especially young people.

This was exercised through a short training and sensitization session organized by Exulansis Uganda and St. Francis Hospital, Nsambya.

According to mental health experts from St. Francis Hospital, Nsambya, and Exulansis Uganda, people living with HIV are more prone to getting mental illnesses because of the conditions they undergo.

At the training, a section of young people living with HIV were brought together for training on how they can fight against various factors that can cause mental illnesses.

Speaking during the training, Dr. Cabrin Mukiibi, a mental health expert at St. Francis Hospital, Nsambya, said people living with HIV are always quick to feel depressed because they are always thinking that their lives are almost coming to an end.

Mukiibi added that during the recent lockdown caused by COVID-19, most patients could not access Antiretrovirals (ARVs), something that continued to make them feel depressed.

"This continued depression causes anxiety of whether they will live to see another day or not. The result of this is usually mental illnesses. On top of this, HIV patients are still stigmatised and this affects them mentally," Mukiibi says

Unfortunately, amidst the increasing mental health cases particularly for people living with HIV, Uganda has only one government mental health hospital, Butabika Hospital. This makes it hard to attend to the high numbers, as Mukiibi said.

He, therefore, urges the government to come up with more referral mental health hospitals to help people living with HIV, and, therefore, curb mental health cases.

Phiona Matsiko, a mental health counselor, lauded Exulansis Uganda for looking for young people living with HIV through the initiative to sensitise them again victimisation and any acts that may cause them to fall victims of mental illnesses.

This year's Mental Health Day was celebrated under the theme; ‘Mental Health for All: Greater Investment - Greater Access', something that came out clearly in the celebrations.