ZimOnline (cute name, that) reports that 40 percent of Zimbabweans suffer from mental disorders. This is staggering to me, but in a country where unemployment stands at 80 percent (!) I guess it’s not entirely unlikely. At the same time, demand for alcohol is extremely high.
Mental illness rife in Zimbabwe
liz | 3:53 PM | Uncategorized
Liz Spikol was born in Philadelphia sometime in the 20th century. She started writing about her experience as a person with mental illness in 1999, while employed at Philadelphia Weekly as the paper’s managing editor. Aside from serving as that paper’s web editor, music editor, staff writer, senior editor, executive editor and a host of other random roles that she couldn’t make up her mind about, she has also worked as a Spanish teacher, as a Certified Peer Specialist during Philly’s system-wide transformation and as a communications specialist for a prison reform organization. Currently, she works at the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania and writes book reviews for PW. This blog — named one of the Top 10 Bipolar Blogs of 2007 and 2008 by PsychCentral — is about medications, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, OCD, PTSD, SAD (and many other acronyms), mad pride, Big Pharma, celebrities, hospitals, stigma and the recovery movement. And other stuff.
That is an insanely high number…but the upside is that it will be one country where perhaps any stigma attached with MI would be completely eradicated, as a result of its extremely high prevalence.
Since colonial rule of Zimbabwe ended, there has been virtually no food available to the people of Zimbabwe, and very little water. Leave it to the media to blame all of the problems of this nation on alcoholism and insanity.
From BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/country_profiles/1064589.stm
“Aid agencies and critics partly blame food shortages on the land reform programme. The government blames a long-running drought, and Mr Mugabe has accused Britain and its allies of sabotaging the economy in revenge for the redistribution programme.”
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