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Mukudzei Chingwere in ROME, Italy

Zimbabwe has adopted an approach that capacitates communities to identify and assist all people in need of mental health services, Deputy Minister of Health and Child Care Dr John Mangwiro told the ongoing Global Mental Health Summit in Rome.

The approach, which is informed by President Mnangagwa’s economic development strategy of leaving no one and no place behind, targets those who need the services right down to village level and the workplace.

It is anchored on what the Ministry calls family support or parenting programmes under which community treatment support will be driven by village health workers who will be trained on mental health screening, problem solving and therapy.

There’s also an arm called the “Workplace Mental Health Champion” where colleague workers will offer first line help to those in need.

Many mental health problems can be ameliorated with advice, and even where specialist medical care is needed, people can be referred. Modern psychiatric treatment now has a wide range of medication developed over the last 70 years that can, when properly prescribed, give most mentally ill people very high levels of functionality.

“In 2021, we launched the special initiative for mental health, which aims to improve service delivery through capacity building and community mental health,” said Dr Mangwiro.

“We also launched the first Zimbabwe mental health investment case which we completed in July 2022. The investment case is going to help Zimbabwe to increase funding in mental health. By investing in mental health now, Zimbabwe could gain economic benefits of US$175 million in the next 10 years and US$689 million in the next 20 years.”

The Ministry was building on other highly successful community programmes for the volunteer assistance for mental illnesses, he said.

“Regarding community mental health, we have established family support or parenting programmes in 23 districts and a community treatment supporter, a peer supporter for adolescents living with HIV,” said Dr Mangwiro.

“This cadre has helped to improve treatment outcomes among adolescents living with HIV. We have since adopted the friendship bench model, a Zimbabwean born intervention where village health workers are trained to offer mental health screening and problem solving therapy while sitting on a bench.”

Dr Mangwiro said regarding workplace mental health, Zimbabwe had established and continued to train a cadre of volunteers.

“This is a volunteer at a workplace who is trained on common mental health disorders, basic counselling skills, problem solving therapy and when and how to refer,” he said. “We have an Inter-ministerial taskforce of people in transit and victims of human trafficking.

“Regarding the rights of people living with mental health conditions. We trained 1 040 health care workers on WHO quality rights in 2021 and 500 people living with mental health have received the same training.”

World Health Organisation Director-General Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus said there was no health without mental health.

France, the host of last year’s summit, said it was going to use next year’s Rugby World Cup to promote non-discrimination against mental health patients.

Italian Minister of Health Dr Roberto Speranza, the host of the meeting, encouraged investments in health as a way of improving on quality of life to the people.

Argentina is next year’s host of the meeting and its Minister of Health Dr Carla Vizzotti emphasised the importance of fighting discrimination.