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| MentalHealth |
MentalHealth Services inModern Egypt
Nineteen of Egypt’s 24 governorates have psychiatric clinics and outpatient units while five have no psychiatric services.
The population of Egypt is over 77,500,000. There are approximately 120,000 doctors, one for every 650 citizens; 1,000 psychiatrists, including those under training, one for every 77,500 citizens; and about 9,000 psychiatric beds, one bed for every 8,600 citizens (i.e., 12 beds/100,000 population).
Psychiatric beds constitute less than 10% of the total number of hospital beds (110,000). Abbassia and Khanka, the two largest hospitals, face major difficulties finding finance for treatment and rehabilitation, while accommodating about 5,000 patients. The new policy of deinstitutionalization and provision of community care may reduce the number of psychiatric inpatients, but will not solve the problem . Since 1967, three extra mental hospital have opened in Alexandria, Helwan and near the airport.
Egypt has approximately 250 clinical psychologists, with hundreds of general psychologists in areas unrelated to mental health. There are many social workers practising in all psychiatric facilities, but unfortunately they have minimal graduate training in psychiatry.
Egypt has 13 medical schools, each with inpatient and outpatient psychiatric services. For the last 60 years, Egypt has had a diploma in psychological medicine, and for 40 years a master’s and doctorate degree in psychiatry. Egypt is one of the few Arab countries with its own postgraduate degrees in psychiatry.
There are four higher institutes of nursing in Egypt, equivalent to medical schools, that graduate highly qualified psychiatric nurses. However, most leave the country, attracted by the high salaries in the petrodollar Arabian Gulf States. Most nurses working in mental health facilities are general nurses who graduated from nursing schools, and the numbers are insufficient to provide adequate psychiatric nursing services.
In spite of rapid social changes in Egypt, the majority of people, especially in rural areas, belong to
an extended family hierarchy. It is considered shameful that an elderly demented person be cared for away from family surroundings, and the parents of retarded or hyperkinetic children feel a primary responsibility toward them rather than sending them to be looked after in an institution.
Traditional and religious healers play amajor role in primary psychiatric care in Egypt. They deal with minor neurotic, psychosomatic and transitory psychotic states using religious and group psychotherapies, suggestion, and devices such as amulets and incantations .
It was estimated that 60% of outpatients at the university clinic in Cairo serving low socioeconomic classes have been to traditional healers before coming to the psychiatrist . In rural areas, community care is implemented without the need for health-care workers. Egyptians, especially those living in the countryside, have a special tolerance for mental disorders and an ability to assimilate chronic mental patients. These patients, and those with mild or moderate mental retardation, are rehabilitated daily by cultivating and planting the countryside along with, and under supervision of, family members.
Aftercare services in Egypt are still limited due to the poor understanding of most people for the need for follow-up care after initial improvement. Community care such as hostels, day centers, rehabilitation centers, and health visitors are only available in big cities.
Aftercare services in Egypt are still limited due to the poor understanding of most people for the need for follow-up care after initial improvement. Community care such as hostels, day centers, rehabilitation centers, and health visitors are only available in big cities.
