Community based mental health care and services in South Africa : a human rights approach

Abstract

Despite having standalone mental health legislation and policy, persons with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities do not have access to community based mental health care and services. The PHC system is still following a highly medicalised approach to mental health care, which is problematic as attention should be on the provision of social care services to enjoy all other fundamental rights and freedoms on an equal basis with others.48 According to the WHO one of the benefits of community based mental health services is that ‘community services can reach people where they live and work, thereby increasing access to mental health-related activities and interventions, as well as to other social support services.’ It is therefore crucial to analyse the important role CBOs play in increasing access to community based mental health services for all citizens, including persons with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities. There is very little research undertaken in South Africa to measure the progress made to develop community based mental health services to provide wide scale psychosocial and rehabilitation support, and mental health promotion programmes to the majority of South Africans as prescribed in the CRPD.