GALKAYO MENTAL HEALTH CENTER – Galkayo Medical Foundation

Galkaio Mental Health Center

BACKGROUND OF THE PROJECT

Galkayo Mental Health Center (GMHC) is a non profit, non religious and non- governmental organization that was established on 31st December 2011. We are a humanitarian organization in Galkayo, Puntland, Somalia. Our main focus is to provide medical, psychiatric and social care for mentally ill patients for Mudug region and the whole of Puntland region in general. We also seek to provide psycho social therapy for these patients with mental illness and subsequently facilitate their reintegration back into the community. All these are in efforts to demystify, dehumanize and de-stigmatize mental illness within our community here in and around Galkayo.

In all these efforts GMHC also focuses on their social well being of these patients admitted to the center. We provide two meals a day to the in-patients admitted (breakfast and dinner); we have enough space to accommodate for their group therapy sessions (play games, for them to relax during their free time). We have a bed capacity of twenty two beds in seven rooms for the in-patients.

G.M. H. C was established after carrying out a needs assessment, and revealed that a mental health facility is needed to provide this essential service to the large number of patients with mental illness here in Galkayo. This can be attributed to the fact that Somalia has been affected by drought, famine and war for the past 20 years. Many people have suffered (or are still suffering) from the effects of the war has had a great impact to their psychological well-being; i.e.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) may have resulted from torture, rape, witnessing horrific scenes.
Depression – because family members have been killed for no reason.
Fear – Living in constant fear because of lawlessness have affected some people psychologically.

As founders of GMHC we were overwhelmed by the huge number of mentally ill patients most of whom homeless and are sometimes were mistreated by the community (i.e. being called names and despised by other community members); they live in unbearable conditions and are in a dire situation sometimes going without food for several days. At the light of this tragedy we established an outpatient and inpatient service to the huge number of people seeking psychiatric help and provide medical and psycho social treatment and for these patients.

ACTIVITIES

Since its establishment on 31^st Dec 2011, we have had a total of 250 in patients with a successful outcome of 90%. Of these, 50% have been integrated back to their family and community and we provide follow up
We have seen and a total of 355 outpatients. Besides the medical and psychosocial treatment, we give them two meals per day (breakfast and dinner)
We have trained 49 trainees (auxiliary nurses and nurses) in social health workers and psychosocial nurses in 3 groups of 2 months of training each with a successful outcome.
We provide psychosocial and behavioural activities to the patients and their families and relatives (play games and daily life with the patients and their families usually each Friday in the centre).
Counselling and behavioural advice to the family and relatives.
Awareness through the media especially the radio to de-stigmatize with mental health illness patients

As GMHC we strive to advocate and safeguard the human rights and more specifically, the rights of the people with mental illness as they are part and parcel of our society. We all have a responsibility to take care of them and provide their basic and essential needs. However, we need support from all the interested stake holders to achieve our objectives

Galkaio Mental H. C. trained a large number of students in mental health.

PROJECT GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

To identify and prioritize social mental health needs facing the community
Reconstruction and renovation of public mental health institutions
To respond and solve the acute social mental problems in relation to health sectors in relation to the Puntland Agency Social Welfare (PASW)

The overall goal of this project is to ensure the provision of effective and efficient quality medical, Social and psychosocial care for the patients. This service will be accessible and available to the entire direct and indirect beneficiaries.

BENEFICIARIES AND TARGET GROUPS

The project targets directly to the mental ill health patients in Mudug region and even the whole of the Puntland region. Most of these direct beneficiaries are women, children, Men, who are suffering from mental illness. Each of these will have access to free quality medical care provided by Galkayo Medical Center (GMC).

Indirect beneficiaries are family members and relatives of the patient(s) with the mental illness.

CHALLENGES

In order to offer quality services to these patients, we need an adequate and regular supply of services. We urgently need your help:

Our main priorities are: –

lack of qualified human resource,
funding to maintain these important services in the centre,
Medical and psychotherapy
food for outpatients and inpatients

Acknowledgements

Shafici Pharmacy – for medicine procurement
Galkayo Medical Center – for medical service and treatment
Puntland Agency for Social Welfare – food procurement
All our voluntary donors and supporters, we are grateful for their help although we cannot mention all of them in this paper because of lack of space.