Medics at Gulu Hospital are concerned due to the rising numbers of mental cases at the hospital. The hospital is receiving over 100 mental cases per week.
“When we classify these mental illnesses, alcohol use disorder takes a bigger percentage. On average per week, we receive 100 outpatients for drug abuse-related mental illness,” reveals Alfred Lulua Droti, the head of the mental health unit at Gulu regional referral hospital.
Since the end of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency in 2006, Acholi sub-region has been battling hundreds of mental illnesses each year.
Psychiatrists have always attributed this problem to the effects of the war.
However, with the open sale of illicit drugs and alcohol in the area, cases of mental illness only get worse. Psychiatrists now say that the vices must be addressed if the fight against mental illness is to be won.
Alfred Lulua Droti says alcohol accounts for the highest number of people with mental health problems, followed by marijuana.
Another psychiatrist at the mental health unit, Charles Amandu, said the open sale of illicit drugs in the area is leading to an increase in the number of mentally ill patients.
“Ninety percent of people we receive are illicit substance abusers. Just go to the city now. How many people are selling marijuana in the open? Amandu wonders.
Statistics from the mental health unit show that the unit receives at least 500 patients, majority of whom suffer drug abuse-induced mental illness, per month.