ASCA BENIN

Mental illness is a chronic disease that, on the one hand, requires long-term care and, on the other hand, is still highly stigmatized. In the West of Africa, people suffering from mental illnesses are still often considered as possessed by a demon or bewitched. Those around them keep their distance in the face of these unexplained behaviours, abandoning or marginalising those who are in fact in need of care.

If care is interrupted, the patient can relapse and symptoms can reappear. To alleviate this problem, the ASCA Benin initiative has set up a system that sends patients a monthly reminder of the day of their visit and informs their relatives on how to behave in light of the various symptoms related to this disease. This system can considerably reduce relapses and improve the reintegration of patients in society. In fact, this initiative makes it possible to reduce the significant relapses related to mental illness and helps to remove the taboo associated with this illness in our society.

Patients are firstly welcomed in the shelters, fundamental link of the Saint-Camille to regain their dignity and freedom. The association diagnoses the disorder or disease and then treats patients with medication. According to their personal development, people are stabilised and then directed to a rehabilitation centre to learn a skill or to carry out their work, and thus begin their reintegration into their home communities. There are also relay centres where medication is dropped off and provided to patients. They have been created to overcome the obstacle of accessibility to medication, which is distance. In Benin, there are more than twenty relay centres that cover the national territory.