The Lagos State Government has launched a mental health helpline tagged ‘The Lagos Lifeline.’
It is a tele-Mental Health service that aims to provide Lagos residents with access to psychosocial support, counselling and psychotherapy services at no cost through a dedicated line – 0909000MIND or 09090006463.
At the formal launch of the facility, the State’s Commissioner for Health, Professor Akin Abayomi said;
“The Lagos Lifeline provides a bridge to meet various challenges militating against access to mental health services including the incidence of suicidal attempts, poor access to mental health services for patients in hard-to-reach areas, Stigma to Mental Health Issues and patients who need treatment, poor access to information and referral to neighbouring health facilities providing mental health services and poor linkages for mental health support for victims of Domestic and Sexual Violence.”
Professor Abayomi said; “the objective of the Lagos Lifeline is geared towards providing improved access to simple diagnostic counselling, and referral services for Lagosians, either as first point-of-call, or for follow-up care.”
According to him, ”the Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has made mental health a priority and conceptualised the largest mental health institute in Nigeria.
”To make sure that we pick up mental health early, we are refurbishing our psychiatric wards in our general hospitals and our tertiary hospital at LASUTH, and going beyond that, we have currently designed and conceptualised probably the largest mental health institute with 500-bed psychiatric hospital coupled with 1000 beds for rehabilitation.”
Professor Abayomi also stated that the State government would expend resources to address mental health issues particularly as it affects stress, anxiety, stigmatisation and mental health disorders associated with a megacity like Lagos.
In the same vain, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, Dr. Olusegun Ogboye in his explanation of how the helpline will work said: “The Ministry of Health recognised early that there is a reason to strengthen our mental health programme and our mental health response and this is what led to the setup of the Lagos Lifeline. We have a team of dedicated staff led by Dr. Ajo n male who has been extremely committed to this process to help set up the helpline”.
He said; “We have people who have been trained in responding to callers. People call in and speak with one of our trained Lifeline counsellors who find out what the challenges are and provide help as required.
“Sometimes the Lifeline contact ends with that single conversation and sometimes it requires further engagement. The Lifeline counsellors are volunteers and they sometimes reach back to people or take calls back again from people. There is a back and forth that resolves issues and sometimes we refer specific mental health issues to mental professionals for further engagement and management.”