Psychiatry and Decolonisation in Uganda by Yolana Pringle

Author:Yolana Pringle
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781137600950
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK

Even then, despite all expectations, there was no guarantee that this preparation was not all for nothing when the ‘white clay’ was removed: ‘Will it be the pearl in the oyster shell, / Or mere rottenness?’ 40 These Makerere graduates would have agreed with the psychiatrists that it was not ‘education’ per se that was a problem, but would likely have had very different ideas about the nature of changes required. Rather than seeing their experiences as indicative of the need for an increase in the capacity of mental health services in Uganda, it was the approaches, values and content of education that needed to be addressed.

Analysis of the problems facing students and urban migrants pointed to a need for wide-ranging reforms not only within education, but in the provision of social welfare services. Yet psychiatry’s interest in these groups did not translate into additional, targeted psychiatric support. While from 1966 psychiatrists ran a monthly clinic at Kasangati Health Centre, an area with a relatively high number of migrants, as well as individuals living alone, there was no specific service for Rwandan immigrants, and no psychiatrist who could speak Kinyarwanda. 41 At Makerere, too, students seeking assistance for anxiety and depression continued to rely on the Student Health Service which, reflecting the insular nature of the campus, was used by an estimated 80–90% of all students in any one year. 42 The medical practitioners who staffed the service had no specialist training in mental health, their main role in these cases being to counsel students. The small number of students who showed signs of schizophrenia or psychosis were referred to a psychiatrist at Mulago Hospital, but otherwise mental health was handled internally, and there were no plans to increase or change this service. 43 The importance of concern about education and urbanisation should instead be located in the way it provided a bridge between psychiatry and the needs and priorities of the developmentalist state—a way of demonstrating psychiatry’s relevance to both state and society. In an attempt to combat the long-standing neglect of psychiatry by government officials, the psychiatrists of the late 1960s and early 1970s would use it to point to signs of growing pressure on medical, health and social welfare services in the future.

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