LAGOS – A Consultant Psychiatrist, Dr Olugbenga Owoeye, on Tuesday urged Nigerians to endeavour to live happily with less worries in order to maintain a good mental health.
Owoeye, who works at the Federal Neuro-Psychiatry Hospital, Yaba, gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
He said that mental illness could affect anybody and urged people to maintain a good mental health in order to have a balanced physical and social health.
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“Mental illness is no respecter of person. It affects the rich, it affects the poor, it can affect anybody.
“And they must know what those things are, risky lifestyle that can lead to it.
“You must try as much as possible to live your life on daily basis; you do not need to worry about things, a very reasonable lifestyle.
“Avoid drugs, avoid alcohol. You must be able to live within your means. Anything that will take sleep from you, do not go into it.
“You must have a realistic estimate of your own ability and live within it.
“So, these are some of the things that will make you to be healthy, physically and mentally, because without mental health, there is no health.
“So, you must maintain your mental health first for you to be able to balance physically, and also socially. “
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He said that early recognition of mental illness would aid early treatment of the disease and better outcome of mental wellbeing.
The consultant said that inadequate health-related facilities were major challenge in managing the mentally ill in the country.
He said that Nigeria had less than 200 psychiatrists to manage about 160 million Nigerians.
“We need a lot of health-related facilities to take care of the mentally ill in our society. We do not have enough personnel.
“In our hospital here in Lagos, we have only about 530 beds to manage the population of about seven million which is not enough.
“People are breaking down on a daily basis, because they are brought to the hospital with various illnesses.“ (NAN)