Mental health champions: Kilifi mothers changing their children's lives

Meet 76-year-old Regina Kasiku Mwendo, a mother whose story is known to many in her hometown in Kilifi County.

Mwendo, who hails from Vibao Viwili village, makes hospital trips twice a month to pick medicine for her son and daughter.

She makes the trips on behalf of the two, both adults, who wait patiently for their mother to return home.

With their home located on the border of Kilifi and Tana River Counties, Mwendo says the four-hour journey to Malindi Sub County Hospital has become a common practice.

“I cannot neglect my children. I pick their medicine which they take for at least two months,” she said.

A common figure in the mental health unit, she wakes up early so that she can catch the last bus from Malindi to Tana River, which departs at 3 p.m.

“My first born is in his early 50s. My second born is in her 40s. They have been battling mental health illness for more than 30 years now,” she added.

She says the journey has been fraught with challenges, ranging from the costs of the medicine to stigmatization.

“At first, we would lock them up. But with time, we understood that this is an illness just like any other and hence we resorted to medication,” Mwendo recalled.

Her plight is shared by many including Sidi Kalume, a young woman who was forced to resign from her job as a result of mental illness.

“People around me noticed that I would get easily irritated and I would at times abscond duty,” Kalume said.
 
Kalume now depends on her mother fully. “I had a good job and I used to be very independent but now I am just at home relying on my mother for everything”, she added.

The cost of her lifelong medication is a significant burden, highlighting the broader issue of expensive mental health treatments in the country.

A 2020 report by the Task force on Mental Health in Kenya recommended mental illness to be declared as a national disaster.

The report further revealed that one in every four Kenyans has a mental health issue.

Beatrice Njeru, head of the mental unit at Malindi Sub County Hospital, corroborates this, noting that the facility receives an average of five to ten new patients daily, resulting to about 30 revisits.
 
Njeru acknowledges the challenge of expensive medication and lack of enough facilities.

But with satellite clinics cropping up in far flung areas like Marereni in Magarini and Bamba in Ganze; hope lies ahead.

She added that even though the clinics have helped a great deal they are still faced with the shortage of staff.

“Today there will be no clinics in those areas because all three of us are in Malindi to attend to the increasing number of patients,” she added.
 
The Coastal Region has only one public mental health Unit in Mombasa which is domiciled at Port Reitz Hospital and offers inpatient services.

Dr. Janbiby Yusuf Mohammed, a psychiatrist in Mombasa, acknowledges that there has been an increase in awareness on mental health issues compared to in the past.

“Lack of enough units is a great challenge especially for mental health patients,” Mohammed said.

The medics have called on the government to address the matter in order to avert further crisis.