![](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ozkkx5dij9jc461e3e681d7bac.jpg\")
<\/div>Patients at the Gilgil Mental Hospital.<\/strong> [Antony Gitonga, Standard]\n<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n For a visitor to the Gilgil\u00a0Mental\u00a0Hospital, the archaic buildings with rusting roofing sum up the deteriorating\u00a0state\u00a0of the facility.\n<\/p>\n The facility, within Gilgil sub-county hospital, has been in a sorry\u00a0state\u00a0for years. Patients can be seen in worn-out uniforms.\u00a0 <\/p>\n This has been attributed to years of neglect by the national government which oversees the treatment of\u00a0mental\u00a0health.\n<\/p>\n In 2019, then Health Cabinet Secretary Sicily Kariuki promised action to improve conditions at the hospitals. This followed an appeal by Governor Lee Kinyanjui who had earlier accused the national government of neglecting the facility.\n<\/p>\n Although health is a devolved function, the county leadership could not finance the improvement of\u00a0Gilgil\u00a0Mental\u00a0Hospital since some functions, including\u00a0mental\u00a0health, are still under the national government.\n<\/p>\n But two years later, the national government has pledged Sh250 million for the rehabilitation of the facility.\n<\/p>\n “The condition of the hospital is declining even as cases of\u00a0mental\u00a0health continue to increase,”\u00a0Kinyanjui said in Gilgil on Thursday.\u00a0 <\/p>\n \u201cWe engaged the national government which has agreed to take over this hospital and rehabilitate it at a cost of\u00a0Sh250m.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n He termed the facility critical in the management of cases of\u00a0mental\u00a0health that are rising.\n<\/p>\n The government has attributed several incidents of murder within families and communities to depression and\u00a0mental\u00a0challenges.\n<\/p>\n \u201cThe situation has been worsened by drug abuse, especially among the youth. This facility has been critical in addressing cases of\u00a0mental\u00a0health,\u201d Kinyanjui said.\n<\/p>\n Gilgil MP Martha Wangari said conditions at the facility deteriorated after the national government failed to keep its promise. <\/p>\n Wangari wants the\u00a0Gilgil\u00a0Mental\u00a0Hospital, which has over 30 patients, upgraded the same way the national government did with Mathari Hospital in Nairobi.\n<\/p>\n \u201cThe Ministry of Health promised to take over the running of this facility but that has not happened which means more suffering for patients and the staff,\u201d the MP said.\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Source: The Standard Media Kenya<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Patients at the Gilgil Mental Hospital. [Antony Gitonga, Standard] For a visitor to the Gilgil\u00a0Mental\u00a0Hospital, the archaic buildings with rusting roofing sum up the deteriorating\u00a0state\u00a0of the facility. The facility, within Gilgil sub-county hospital, has been in a sorry\u00a0state\u00a0for years. Patients can be seen in worn-out uniforms.\u00a0 This has been attributed to years of neglect by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-916697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=916697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916697\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=916697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=916697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=916697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}