KENYA— Chiromo Hospital Group, a private group of psychiatric facilities in Kenya, has offered a new mental healthcare initiative to help participants connect with mental health providers and services.
The hospital group is the only private sector level 5 hospital offering promotive, preventative, and curative mental healthcare services.
An initiative is an approach that acknowledges mental health illness patients’ unique challenges and equips them with necessary tools that aim to create a safe and supportive environment that fosters open communication.
Tufunguke aims at strategies to improve prevention, early identification, and treatment, expand provider capacity, and increase the integration of behavioral health and primary care.
The initiative also raises awareness, encouraging health-seeking behavior and understanding of mental health through educational initiatives.
The initiative takes different forms to reach the masses through online conversation as well as physical engagements through events, training, and workshops.
Through the hospital’s online platforms, the hospital utilizes its digital spaces to increase reach and surpass regional barriers to form a social connection.
Tufunguke social media campaign takes various approaches which include Tufunguke testimonials where Chiromo Hospital group clients share their stories either in written, audio, or video format and have them published on the hospital’s social media pages.
Gathoni Mbugua, a clinical psychologist and head of digital relations at Chiromo Hospital group, the hospital strives to create an environment for individuals to share patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers’ mental health experiences, feelings, and access to resources and support for mental health care.
She adds that the nature of mental health challenges is such that it flourishes and exacerbates silence and social isolation and Tufunguke’s objective is to help people to engage in preventive, promotive, and curative mental health care.
Mbugua gave the example of Tufunguke’s Twitter strategy revolves around organizing tweet chats every Monday known as #MindfulMondays and Twitter spaces every Wednesday.
As mental health issues continue to pose challenges, she says that digital platforms have the potential to support communities to normalize vital conversations about mental well-being, thereby helping users forge mental and digital resilience.
She adds that the online platform reaches an average of 100,000 people a month on social media.
The Case of Mental Health in Kenya
For long mental health has been hidden behind the curtain of stigma and discrimination despite one in every four Kenyans living with a mental health disorder, according to data from the Taskforce on Mental Health report formed by President Kenyatta in 2019.
The Kenyan National Commission of Human Rights (KNCHR) estimates that 25% and 40% of outpatients and inpatients suffer from mental health conditions.
The International Journal of Mental Health System notes that the most frequent diagnoses of mental illnesses made in general hospital settings are depression, substance abuse, stress, and anxiety disorders.
A WHO report in 2017, ranked Kenya fifth among African countries with elevated depression cases, with global statistics indicating that approximately two million people suffer from depression.
Kenya is estimated to have about 7.5 million social media users and most of the users are aged 21-35 years according to a 2019 study by the social media Lab Africa (SIMElab).
However, based at the United States International University, populations older than 35 years are rarely tech-savvy and might not be able to benefit from most online initiatives.
Despite the Tufunguke online platform reaching many people irrespective of geographical boundaries it may leave out a large group of people who might be in dire need unattended due to a lack of access to internet services and access to smartphones.
Nevertheless, the hospital is trying to bridge this gap by organizing in-person sessions targeted at high-risk individuals such as journalists, police, prisons, sportsmen and women, and the military.
Although unlike the online sessions organizing them has got huge financial implications.
Other strategies are Tufunguke tournaments, ‘Tufunguke na wanahabari,’ ‘Tufunguke na Wanaspoti,’ ‘Tufunguke Shuleni’ and Tufunguke campus tours.
These Tufunguke platforms where awareness of mental disorders particularly, the symptoms of mental ill health among the persons suffering from it and the community at large are created.
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