Crisis of mental health medicines in Uganda

Many thanks for your support and standing with us to change the lives of persons with mental disorders and epilepsy in Agago District, Northern Uganda. The mental health condition of patients with mental disorders and epilepsy has greatly improved as a result of your support.

BasicNeeds prioritized supporting the community drug bank initiative with the funds raised, many thanks for your generous support.

The drug bank is an initiative where patients and caregivers contribute a fixed amount of money every month and procure mental health medicines that are in short supply in health facilities.

We, therefore, conducted the following activities from November 2021 to January 2022;

Held meetings with community drug bank management committees from the 4 health facilities to identify mental health medicines that are in short supply

Procurement and distribution of mental health medicines. A total of 370 packs (37,000 pills) of mental health medicines (antipsychotic and antiepileptic medicines) have been purchased and dispatched to community drug banks in the four health facilities. A total of 540 people are projected to benefit from the mental health medicines and 129 people (54F,75 M) received 10,920 pills during the mental health mobile clinics.

BasicNeeds team and health workers conducted health education talks in the four health facilities. The discussions focused on drug adherence, how to keep drugs safely, how to keep safe from COVID 19, and how to identify warning signs of relapse in case a Patient is withdrawn from medication. The event was attended by 220 out patients’ unit clients (143F,77M)

Held mental health mobile clinics in the four health facilities. A total of 182 Patients (97F,85M) were reviewed by health workers. Out of 182 patients who attended the mental health clinic, 129 benefited from the drug bank initiative, and 53 benefited from the available mental health medicines supplied by the government.

Stakeholders’ feedback:

 “I appreciate BasicNeeds for the Drug Bank initiative, before the introduction of this initiative, my patient would sometimes go back home without mental health medicines due to drug stock-out at the health facilities but now I feel extremely motivated to come for medicines on clinic days and my patient does not experience any epileptic attack,” said a caregiver from Lokole Sub County

 “This is such an amazing initiative by BasicNeeds, finally the patients will not go without medicines like in the past where they would entirely rely on government supplies, and I encourage them to fully embrace this,” said the in-charge Olung Health Centre.