By Dean Chisambo
Global Health Corps has called for collaboration among different implementers and players to curb mental health issues in the country.
Global Health Corps country director Simon Simkoko said these remarks after conducting mental health awareness stakeholders meeting in Lilongwe on Monday.
Simkoko said they are concerned with anything affecting communities, saying mental health is one of the area that contribute to the cases of suicide, as it has been reported in the media.
He said :” the major expectation for us is around collaboration, we want to bring the stakeholders in one place, you know we have many places but out of these players they are having different programming that are independent, why can’t we collaborate?, why can’t we come together?.”
Simkoko further said their focus is to make sure that players are able to share resources and expertise in order to make the same impact in communities .
Simkoko said:” we will continue having this Programme around mental health, so that we are able to be focused and impact initiatives.”
In his sentiment head of non communicable disease and mental health division in the ministry of health Dr Jonathan Chiwanda said as the ministry they are worried of high rise of suicide cases but they remain vigilant.
He stated that increase of cases are sometimes caused due to poor reporting, growth of the population, dynamics of living conditions, social economic issues and the coming of different occurrences contribute to the cases of mental condition including suicide.
According to ministry of health ,statistics has shown that suicide cases are increasing for the last four years starting from 2019 were 119 cases that were registered in 2020 were 280 cases, in 2021 were 291 cases, in 2022 were 296 cases  in 2023 were 529 cases that were registered and in this year 2024 from January up to June 281 are registered.
Global Health Corps is an international organization which provides leadership in development and building young professionals.
