The Federal Government has been urged to immediately implement the National Mental Health Act to address Nigeria’s widening mental healthcare gap and improve access to treatment for millions of people living with mental health conditions.
A Professor of Psychiatry at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Prof. Taiwo Latif Sheikh, made the call during a Mental Health Leadership and Advocacy Programme (mhLAP) public lecture titled “Addressing Mental Health Systems Gap Through Policy and Legislation Reform.”
Sheikh warned that despite the enactment of the National Mental Health Act in December 2022, implementation has stalled because the government has yet to establish the Department of Mental Health in the Federal Ministry of Health, one of the law’s key provisions.
“We are calling on the Federal Government to implement the National Mental Health Act. The first objective of the law is the establishment of a Department of Mental Health
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