'The Hunchback in Uganda's Rehabilitation institutions'

Rehabilitation can plainly be defined as a process to restore useful life thru therapy and education or restore good condition, operation or capacity.

Save for the 'naturally' mentally ill persons, substance abuse and life troubles have been cited as major contributing factors to 80% of mental health patients finding home in Uganda's rehabilitation institutions! 

Unlike most general hospitals in Uganda whose conditions are utterly appalling and inauspicious, Rehab homes are one of the most effectively run health institutions in the country.

Medical supplies are adequately stocked, patient-medication done on time, hygiene standards fairly good, except for 'intensively' mentally ill patients whose personal hygiene is understandably hard to maintain.

However, Rehab homes seem to unfortunately limp in service when it comes to psychotherapy and counseling of mental health patients! The most grand of interventions when dealing with such patients should be sitting down and talking to these individuals and together crafting ways in which they can 'sanely' deal with their life troubles.

Rehabilitation channels for mental health patients should be tailored around helping them open up about their troubles with emphasis being weighed on causal-factors, before solutions are conjured up and road to normalcy is paved.

Psychiatrists, psychologists and counselors must channel most of their energy in building solid one-on-one bonds with patients to enable them fully open up about their lives because they feel safer and at peace during personal conversations than in a communal-kind of therapy.

Also allocation of professional mental health personnel should involve patients' input, to enable easy build rapport and connection.

Unfortunately most Rehab homes schedule such sessions during the closing weeks of a patient’s stay at the home which in most cases has less impact, because they know they are leaving soon anyway!

Lastly, most Rehab homes don't prepare patients for real life outside the Rehab home walls, most of them relapse in character and behavior upon discharge due to reality shock!

It’s more like pushing kids into a candy store!

#Omukiga-Wekiniga

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