Bill seeking to establish mental health commission passes second reading at senate

A bill seeking to establish an agency known as the National Commission for Mental and Substances Abuse Services has passed second reading at the senate.

The bill passed second reading after Yahaya Oloriegbe, senator representing Kwara central and its sponsor, moved a motion for a debate on it.

While leading the debate, Oloriegbe said according to World Health Organization (WHO) report, about 50 million people are suffering from some sort of mental illness.

The senator said there is a lack of public mental health promotion and mental illness prevention programmes in Nigeria because of the non-implementation of the National Mental Health Service Delivery Policy (2013).

“There is a lack of equitable distribution of the few modern structures of service delivery for persons with mental health and psychosocial disabilities in Nigeria,” he said.

“It is non-existent in the rural areas where the vast majority of Nigerians who need it reside.”

Oloriegbe said the bill is aimed at providing a unified response to the challenges relating to the delivery of mental health.

“The bill aims to provide enhancement of mental wellbeing of the citizens through programs that promotes mental health,” he said.

“Prevent mental health and psychosocial disabilities; provide effective, compassionate, humane and universally accessible treatments for mental health and psychosocial disabilities and regulation of mental health and substance abuse services.”