Mental illness in Botswana has now reached shocking proportions.
It is a result of different causes, drugs being one of them.
Botswana is now a growing consumer of drugs, especially hard drugs.
Consumption is high among the youth.
But there is evidence that adults too are consuming these drugs.
Botswana public health is undergoing serious challenges.
These challenges are reducing the capacity to react and adapt to changing dynamics.
Even at its best, the public health sector’s support for mental health was never a top priority.
Even before the current financial and supply chain challenges grew this deep, mental health was never anywhere near the top among the priorities.
Now with these current challenges, it follows that mental health will once again be sent to the farthest backwaters.
That is most worrying.
Demand for mental health services is growing fast, yet the means and capacity to meet the demand is diminishing by the day.
It follows that research spending, never a strength even during the best of times swill slip further behind.
Much of the contributors and causes of the current crisis can very easily be traced to covid 19.
Covid 19 simply heightened vulnerabilities.
It undermined people’s ability to cope.
It killed social defence mechanisms.
Quarantining people inside their homes for long periods of time has had enormous impacts.
During the lockdowns, people were squeezed together in small spaces with other people they had not always liked and or loved or gotten well with.
The young people, especially of school going age found themselves totally unable to cope.
Those who were always on the edge simply slipped over the cliff.
Many others too fell into the slippery paths.
The nation is now dealing with devastating aftermath.
Yet another big influence has got to be social media.
Social media has brought about a shift in lifestyles.
There is no question that it has improved life. And enhanced communication.
But it has also changed the way people interact.
In a bad way, it has changed the way young people view themselves.
And it has had a devastating impact on the levels of self confidence among young people.
Whether we like it or not, social media is laying young people to waste.
The biggest loser is mental health.
Young people, it would seem are simply not wired to resist social media.
They simply are not able to cope with it.
And it is getting worse by the day.
Some of the social media platforms have addictive feeds. And on younger children they have similar effect like poison.
Thankfully an international debate is now raging on how to cut and control the link between young people and social media.
The debate might be late.
But its better late than never.
One of the biggest problems has got to be the stigma that is attached to mental health illnesses.
It is not unusual for families in Botswana to hide members that are not well mentally.
This makes it hard for these people to get help they need.
Quarantining such people away also exacerbates rather than solve the problem.