The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) recently delivered mental health and psychosocial support services to 10,000 individuals who have suffered trauma in Borno.
The services provided by ICRC reached a wide range of individuals, including internally displaced persons (IDPs), missing persons, hospital patients with weapon-related injuries, frontline healthcare workers, and individuals in detention.
These services were delivered at various healthcare facilities to address the mental health and psychosocial needs of these diverse groups.
Ms Comfort Dauda, the ICRC Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Field Officer disclosed this in Maiduguri.
She stated that the ICRC has been actively providing mental and psychosocial support to those affected by violence and armed conflict in the state.
As part of their efforts, they recently celebrated World Mental Health Day in one of the communities with their service users.
Dauda further elaborated that the ICRC’s services encompass various forms of support, including basic psychosocial assistance, psychological first aid, psychoeducation, awareness campaigns, community-based activities, counselling, group therapy, psychiatric assessments, and treatment for the beneficiaries.
What she said
- ” The beneficiaries were drawn from Maiduguri Metropolitan Council, Damboa Dikwa Monguno, and Bama. They were provided with 10 weeks of psycho-social support services,” she said.
According to her,
- “We are supporting such patients in Umaru Shehu Hospital, State Psychiatric Hospital State Specialist Hospital, and University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospitals in the state to provide such services to the victims.
- “We also collaborated with the State Psychiatric Hospital to train some social workers and nurses to support people affected by violence on mental health and psychosocial support services.
- ”We are also collaborating with the State Ministry of Health and Women Affairs to provide psychological support services to women, and girls who were sexual violent victims.
- “We are currently working in three communities in the MMC including Ngaranam Bayan Quarters and Libya Bayan Texaco where over 340 people with the same symptoms go to the centres to sit down and interact for ten weeks with our mental health and psychosocial support professionals,” she said.
Malama Batul Bulama, an internally displaced person (IDP), shared her experience of recovery from trauma after receiving mental health and psychosocial services from the organization.
She recounted that before her treatment at one of the centres, she had been struggling with depression and faced significant health challenges following the displacement of her family and community due to activities by Boko Haram insurgents.
