After the celebration of the 2015 Mental Health Day that saw some people suffering from mental disorders in Bamenda cleaned up and catered for, most of these patients have since gone back to their normal lives.

While some families take good care of their siblings with mental health problems, others are simply left to the community to determine their fate.

The Cameroon Baptist Convention, CBC, Health Board recently created a centre to take care of patients with mental disorders. Initially known as the Mental Health Centre, the appellation was later changed to the Family Care Centre, FCC, because of the stigma it created.

Based in the Banso Baptist Hospital, BBH, Kumbo, Bui Division of the North West Region, the centre treats persons with mental and neurological disorders, including seizures, epilepsy with convulsions, depression, anxiety, disorder, dementia, developmental and behavioural problems, drug abuse and schizophrenia, etc.

FCC, which went operational in January 2015, provides mental health care with the purpose of improving quality services at all levels – base hospital and outreach. It offers medical and psycho-social services to people with mental, substance abuse, behavioural and neurological disorders.

According to FCC Director, Rev. Dr Ndongdeh Godlove Nkwain, a psychotherapist, the centre reaches out to individuals with psycho-social impairments and their care givers.

He said the CBH Health Board spent about FCFA 21 million to train two mental health nurses in Nigeria for two years. They returned to Cameroon last November and the centre went operational in January 2015. “Since we have the population at heart, we spent such a huge amount for the training of our staff,” Rev. Ndongdeh explained.

He was quick to add that when the nurses returned to Cameroon, they went round the North West and South West Regions sensitizing the public about the centre. They encouraged people not to abandon their family members with mental health disorders, but to bring them to the centre for proper care. Rev. Dr Ndongdeh Godlove Nkwain added that the centre has just five staff and over 300 patients.

He pointed out that they do not only wait for patients to be brought to the centre, but go out looking for them. The psychotherapist added that the centre is already overburdened with patients, thus the need to train more staff. He therefore called on government to come to the assistance of the CBC Health Board.

The Family Care Centre, which equally offers counselling and psycho-spiritual therapy, is proud to have treated a good number of complete mad cases. Rev. Dr Ndongdeh used the opportunity to call on families with persons with mental disorders to bring them to FCC Banso and not to take them to native doctors where the conditions are horrible. He also called on the government to assist FCC meet with the ever-growing number of patients.