LET US JOIN HANDS TO ADDRESS MENTAL CASES, HEALTH COMMISSIONER PLEADS

Earlier in his remark, the Director of Social Welfare, Oyo State Ministry of Women Affairs, Community Development, Social Welfare and Poverty Alleviation, Mr. S.O Kolajo, said that the 2018 World Mental Health Day was to provide opportunity of bringing to the fore, those salient and relevant issues bordering on the promotion and sustainance of a sound Mental Health Status for people of the World particularly in Nigeria 

The Director represented by Olubukola Akande  noted that teeming young population represent a substantial section of the economy which is quite susceptible to a lot of predisposing factors that negatively affect their mental health thereby stunting their meaningful contributions to the economy

“The increasing in worrisome of involvement of Nigeria youth in societal vices such as cyber crimes, cultism, kidnapping to mention few all have a direct correlation with predisposing factors such as drug and alcohol abuse, smoking of dangerous substances amongst other, all hands must be on deck to stem this ugly trend”

In his own contribution, Dr Victor Makanjuola pointed out that mental health is about ability of the people to interact  with others, and able to cope with their normal day to day activities, explaining   that young people below the age of 30years old are mostly affected by the mental illness noting that children should be enlightened on how they can manage their mental health

He highlighted some of the things that bring about mental illness in young people which can make them to commit suicide, such as fear, negative usage of social media, body shape, and depression to mention few

“Although some believe that most of the affected person is between the age of 40 years above but it is mostly common in youth which their age is below 30 yeara old,   if care is not taking they might grown on to be a defective adult

Makanjuola however make some recommendation in order to cub mental illness in young people such as giving appropriate education to the young people by using appropriate media, creating awareness for them to know the danger of mental illness, encouragement of social skills development and training , and investment in adolescent health in all the service center which are clinic where adult can go and express their challenges