SSD 01 - MENTAL HEALTH COMMUNITY NURSING
Project Location
Mother of Mercy Hospital (MMH) is a Catholic Mission Hospital belonging to the Catholic Diocese of El Obeid (South Kordofan, Sudan) located in Gidel, South Kordofan. Its vision is ‘’to witness God’s love through the healing ministry by offering holistic quality healthcare services for the people of Nuba Mountains’’. It was established on the request of political and local community leaders. It was built during 2007, blessed on the 18 March 2008, received its first inpatients and outpatients on the 25 March, with the first operation on the 28 March. Since then, it has functioned as the main referral hospital for the Nuba Mountains, providing a wide range of health services to a population of over a million scattered through the region.
The Nuba Mountains are a remote and underdeveloped region of the Sudan characterized by poor health indicators and health services. In 2011 war broke out in the Nuba Mountains between the SPLM-N and the Sudanese government. The war is still going on because the people are still fighting for self determination. With the outbreak of the conflict, the mentally ill case has been at an increase, due to the trauma people encountered. Patients are often a burden to the community and family.
Most communities attribute the cause of the illness to other cultural issues yet these may not be the cause. Health awareness and education will facilitate the prompt access to health care mental services before it becomes too late. However, Mother of Mercy Hospital has limited capacity for psychiatric patients, being a general hospital with no psychiatric unit and no qualified psychiatric nurses.
Project description
The project aims to reduce morbidity and mortality and increase access to mental health care services among conflict-affected populations in the Nuba Mountains, South Kordofan. The patients are of public nuisance at the moment and an additional stress to their families yet they deserve medical attention too like any other illness. For this reason MMH has started a program for home and community psychiatric treatment, but there are challenges due to limited resources and staffing.
The drugs for this patients have posed a treat to the hospital and added to this is the need to train and refresh nurses to handle this cases both in the hospital and at home to improve drug compliance. Psychiatric nursing is a specialized nursing, therefore need to support the patients while on treatment and set up facilities and structure for their social therapy both at home and hospital. The support towards the programme stated is of paramount importance to the hospital and mental health of the war affected region of Nuba. Treating such patients properly helps restore them to their normal functional status in society, thus reducing the budget for the community. The project will improve the mental health of the community and the persons. Reduce marginalization of the persons and improve economic productivity.
The following activities are planned within the scope of this project:
- Treat and follow up mental patients in the community
- Establishment of outdoor activities such as social skills training, vocational assistance eg craft workshop and gardening activities to help re insert them to the normal life as any other human being.
- Support of the clients in terms of basic needs such as supplementary feeding and others.
The expected results are as follows:
- Increased access to quality mental health care for people seeking care at the six MMH-supported clinics and communities
- Mental health education and follow-up of mental patients in communities within two years.
- Reduced hospital facility workload and staff workload by training and posting more community mental health workers and nurses out to the reach of the clients.
- Improved community engagement participation in the mental health program
Objectives
- Increase access to quality mental health care for people seeking care at the six MMH-supported clinics and communities
- Provide mental health education and follow-up programs to patients
Beneficiaries
Direct: 500 mentally ill patients and trauma clients
Indirect: society
Referent sister of the project: sr Anita Cecilia
Project's costs