Nigeria’s mental health treatment gap has exceeded 90 per cent, with the country having fewer than 250 psychiatrists to cater for its rapidly growing population, Professor Taiwo Obindo has said.
Obindo, a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Jos, disclosed this on Tuesday while delivering the 126th Inaugural Lecture of the university, titled, “Mental Health, the Ombudsman of the Whole-Body System: No Health Without Mental Health.”
He said the country’s mental health workforce remained grossly inadequate, noting that while the World Health Organisation recommends approximately one psychiatrist for every 10,000 people, Nigeria has about one psychiatrist for between 900,000 and one million people.
According to him, Nigeria currently has fewer than 250 psychiatrists, while the number of those actively practising may be closer to 200.
He said the shortage had been further aggravated by the migration of trained health professionals to developed countries, creating what he described as a serious mental health treatment gap.
“The mental health treatment gap refers to the proportion of people with mental health conditions who are unable to access appropriate care. Because of this lack of access, many individuals turn instead to traditional or spiritual care settings,” he said.
Obindo, who is also an Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist at the Jos University Teaching Hospital, said the concentration of mental health professionals in urban centres had further compounded the problem, particularly for rural communities.
He noted that more than 65 per cent of the Nigerian population lived in rural areas, where access to specialist mental health services remained severely limited.
The professor said the consequences of the shortage could be devastating, recalling a case of a mentally ill patient who had to travel about 200 kilometres to access treatment.
According to him, the patient’s family had restrained him because of his aggressive behaviour, but by the time he reached the treatment centre, the restraints had caused severe injuries to his hands, eventually resulting in their amputation.
“Had appropriate care been available within a few minutes of his home, it is likely that his hands could have been saved,” he emphasized.
Obindo also attributed the widening treatment gap to the high cost of medication, inadequate health insurance coverage and the withdrawal of some forms of support previously provided by pharmaceutical companies.
He said some psychiatric medications that previously cost about N1,000 now cost N10,000 or more, making treatment unaffordable for many patients.
The professor further said mental health received less than two per cent of health-sector allocations in Nigeria, adding that a greater proportion of the available funding went to federal neuropsychiatric and teaching hospitals, with much of it absorbed by overhead costs.
He stressed that mental health conditions often begin early in life, warning that failure to address them promptly could affect education, employment, productivity and the wider economy.
Obindo said about 34 to 35 per cent of mental health conditions begin by age 14, while approximately 63 per cent of people who will develop a mental health condition experience its onset by age 24.
He therefore called for the integration of mental health services into primary healthcare centres across the country to enable early detection and treatment, particularly in underserved communities.
He also advocated increased funding for mental health, greater investment in research, improved access to affordable medication and the use of digital technology and telemedicine to bridge the gap between specialists and patients in rural areas.
Obindo also said the Mental Health Act represented an important shift in Nigeria’s approach to mental healthcare, moving the country away from an outdated system focused largely on confinement towards a rights-based and community-oriented approach.
He said the Act provided protections for people living with mental health conditions, including safeguards against discrimination in areas such as employment and housing.
The professor urged government and other stakeholders to ensure that the law was backed by adequate funding and effective implementation, stressing that “when we ignore the mind, we ignore the individual; and when we heal the mind, we heal the nation.”
Representing the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Jos, Prof. Tanko Ishaya, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Administration), Prof. Charles Pic Onwochei, commended Obindo for his contribution to psychiatry, research and mental health advocacy. He said the inaugural lecture provided an important platform for drawing attention to the challenges confronting mental healthcare in Nigeria and underscored the university’s commitment to scholarship, research and interventions that address critical societal challenges.
