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Co-Founder, Director of Nursing Services and Administration & Matron of New World Specialist Hospital, Dr. Mrs. Abiola Lasebikan has identified Executive stress and drug abuse as two major causes of mental illness in Nigeria.
She gave this revelation during an exclusive interview with Crude Reports magazine at the hospital base at Molete, Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.
Dr. Lasebikan who counseled those with executive functions to take things easy so as not to affect their overall health being was also worried at the alarming rate at which hard drugs had become accessible to youths which in turn is impacting negatively on their lives.
Other Factors identified as causes of mental illness according to her are, emotional factors, which is often due to loss of loved ones and loss of jobs, organic factor relating to patients who react to certain medications as well as hormonal imbalance in some people.
Dr. Lasebikan described mental health as “a state of mental well-being that helps an individual to handle day to day activities leading to being highly productive and contribute to the growth of the community where he or she lives.”
Expatiating further on how executive stress triggers off mental illness, Dr. Lasebikan said “executive stress affects people who are mostly between the ages of forty and sixty-five. These are people who work almost 24 hours a day from office to the home in an attempt to meet target upon target. For these people, if caution is not taken, it can lead to breakdown or burn out. We have seen cases of those suffering from executive stress who will just go haywire in the middle of the night, for some, the crisis can occur right in the middle of an executive meeting.”
As for those in the category of mental illness caused by drug abuse, Dr. Lasebikan lamented that the rate at which most Nigerian youths are going into drug abuse needs urgent attention if the youths regarded as the future leaders of tomorrow will not be wasted .
How can people take precautions so as not allow their health degenerate into mental illness? Dr. Lasebikan said certain signals that precede mental health issues are:
- Irritability which affects change in sleep habit
- Loss of appetite
- Low energy
- Non interest in pleasurable activities
- Depression which makes the person to lose interest in associating with people but rather keeps indoor.
On how to reduce cases of mental illness and deal with arising problems associated with it. Dr. Abiola Lasebikan advised parents to take more interest in the lives of their children rather than just chasing making money, urged government authorities to implement very stringent measures that will make access to hard drugs unattractive and not what she called “free for all access as we have now.”
Going Philosophical, Dr. Lasebikan said Nigeria needs prayer to curb the worrisome trend of the drug abuse cases in the country now so as not to jeopardise her future of a better tomorrow.
Established in February 1993 by Professor Fola Lasebikan and Dr. Mrs. Abiola Lasebikan, the story of New World Specialist Hospital can be likened to the Biblical case of God bringing water from the rock when it seems impossible it will happen. Narrating how it all began, Dr. Abiola Lasebikan told Crude Reports magazine “That the establishment of the hospital in 1993 during the peak of the national crisis of the annulment of the general elections of that year which Presidency was presumably won by Late Moshood Abiola is a pointer that what God cannot do does not exist.”
She went on “During that crisis, when all sectors of the Nigerian social and economic activities were paralysed, people with patients needing attention for Psychiatric problems were looking for my husband to help them with certain cases. We had no plans for it but my parent’s in-law gave us a space at Felele where we treated the first patient successfully. From then on, patients kept on rushing and by 1994, we relocated to Molete where God established the hospital till date.
Talking about the growth that followed, Dr Lasebikan disclosed that apart from having a forty bed capacity, the hospital already has the Rehabilitation Centre at Molete also which caters for VIP patients on demand. Regarded as the first private Psychiatric hospital in Oyo State, New World Specialist Hospital has really grown from a mustard seed to an emerging phenomenon playing the role entrusted to her by fate and divine agenda of God.
By Tunde Olaore
