• Frontline healthcare workers, at higher risk of contracting Covid-19, face long-term stress
• People in quarantine and their families should also get regular psychological support
A mental health crisis is slowly growing as the country deals with the coronavirus.
Healthcare workers are likely to be most affected, followed by about 2,000 people in quarantine and their families.
University of Nairobi mental health specialist Lincoln Ndogoni says Kenya will require the kind of psychological support given to victims of wars and natural calamities.
"The distress among healthcare workers is going to be higher because they have a fear of being infected," says Lincoln Ndogoni, a UoN lecturer and consultant psychosocial and trauma processing adviser.
Ndogoni was involved in providing psychosocial support to survivors of the Rwanda Genocide in 1994. He says Kenya's frontline healthcare workers are likely to experience significant long-term stress, knowing that they are at higher-than-average risk of contracting Covid-19.
"We advocate the integration of mental health and psychosocial support services for all health workers," he says.
A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on March 23 showed 50 per cent of all the frontline health workers in China were depressed and 71 per cent were severely distressed.
"Women, nurses, those in Wuhan, and front-line health care workers have a high risk of developing unfavourable mental health outcomes and may need psychological support or interventions," the study says.
However, it had several limitations, which means its findings may not be replicated in Kenya. It cannot distinguish preexisting mental health symptoms from new symptoms, and it lacks longitudinal follow-up since the survey was carried out for six days (January 29 to February 3).
But Ndogoni says Kenyan health workers face similar and even more dire challenges. He says health workers without proper protective clothing particularly make hard choices.
"Do I die or allow my clients to die?" he asks.
Psychosocial support addresses a person's emotional, social, mental and spiritual needs — all essential elements of positive human development.
He said people in quarantine, and their families should also get regular psychological support.
On Thursday, the government said the number of Covid-19 patients had risen to 110. Twenty-nine new cases were confirmed by the Ministry of Health, the largest to be recorded in a single day since the first confirmed case on March 13.
The 29 came from the largest number tested since the first case.
“There are a lot of skeptics who even today doubt whether the disease is here. I would like to state very clearly that the disease is spreading widely in our society,” Health CS Mutahi Kagwe said Wednesday.
The President also announced the full recovery of two patients — Brenda Ivy Cherotich and Brian Orinda. They had turned negative after two consecutive tests. Orinda had come into contact with Cherotich.
On Wednesday, 22 positive cases were announced, of which 13 were men while nine were women. All but one were from those in quarantine.
“That tells you the importance of the exercise we have been carrying out. It is lucky that we have found 21 people being quarantined because by now, the 21 would also have passed it on to other people,” Kagwe said.