Mental Health
Though the majority of Senegal’s healthcare budget goes to physical health needs, mental health remains an area of concern. The Senegalese government spends 9% of its total health budget on mental health. Currently, Senegal has no national health program, but mental health issues are prevalent. Nearly 17% of children had emotional/behavioral or neuropsychiatric disorders based on 2005 data. Additionally, 16% of adults had psychiatric illness. Primary sources of mental health financing include, in descending order, private insurance, social insurance, out of pocket expenditures by patient or family, and taxes. Mental health is part of primary health care system, with the treatment of severe mental disorders available at the primary level. NGOs are involved with advocacy, prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation. Still, more attention and concern remains to be paid to mental health in Senegal.
Read more about this topic: Health In Senegal
Famous quotes containing the words mental and/or health:
“She, her head back, waited
Barbarous the stalking tide;
Her, nor balked nor sated
But plunged into the wide
Area of mental ire,
Lay at her wandering side.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“Some fear that if parents start listening to their own wants and needs they will neglect their children. It is our belief that children are in fact far less likely to be neglected when their parents’ needs—for support, for friendship, for decent work, for health care, for learning, for play, for time alone—are being met.”
—Wendy Coppedge Sanford. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, introduction (1978)