In Senegal, mental health represents less than 2% of the national health budget. In the field, in the families, many things are mixed up: precariousness of the families, beliefs, lack of knowledge or understanding of the subject, stigmatization and taboo, all of which contribute to the violence exercised on people with mental disorders.
Currently, there are very few initiatives for the care of people with mental disorders outside of already overburdened inpatient wards and psychiatric consultations. Arrived in 2019, Jean Augustin Diégane Tine, head of the mental health division at the Ministry of Health, faced with a lack of resources, seeks to further develop care at the community level, complementary to hospital care.
Rufisque, Hameth Daf has chosen to set up a community care center, the Delossi Center. Since November 2020, the center occupies an old house whose owners were evicted for the construction of the regional express train (TER). In this habitat, three rooms and a dormitory have been set up to accommodate people suffering from mental disorders who were previously on the streets.
Community engagement is an attempt to make society accountable and to ensure that the issue is managed at the local level, not just the national level. This center could be a solution and an opportunity for some of the people who would not want to or could not return to their families. For Hamet, the center is also an alternative to the traditional approach to care through medication. "Most medications in hospitals contain substances to put them to sleep, whereas here, when we talk about socialization, we want everything to be natural first. So that even tomorrow, when a relative comes to pick you up or you get a job, you can be there without medication and without disturbing. And so far, we see that it's working very well."
Text & Images from a portfolio made for Médiapart.
Text Laurence Grun - Images Pierre Vanneste