Ojok Michael
Stakeholders in the mental health sector have castigated government for failing to prioritize increasing funds meant to address mental health challenges in Uganda.
Currently, just under 1% of the National budget is allocated to addressing mental health despite a surge in mental health cases across the country.
The 2025 National Population Census report reveals a sharp increase in reported mental health cases at health facilities, rising by 71 percent between 2021 and 2024 from 294,326 to 843,295 cases.
The report estimates that about 24.2 percent of adults and 22.9 percent of children are affected by mental health conditions.
Fr Samuel Okidi Mwaka, the Director at PACTA Uganda, a pioneer NGO/FBO in the provision of interventions aimed at rehabilitating individuals affected by substance (alcoholism and other drugs) abuse and addiction in Northern Uganda, wants Members of Parliament to prioritize increasing funding into the mental health sector given the magnitude of its impact on the development of the society.
Given the high number of mental health cases in the country, organizations that are providing mental health services are forced to charge rather highly in order to cope up with the expenses at the rehabilitation centers.
At PACTA Uganda, clients pay 70,000 shillings per day for rehabilitation services. Since June 2004, when PACTA started its operations, a total of over 5,000 clients from across the Acholi Sub-region (and part of Southern Sudan) have directly benefited from its program of prevention, awareness creation, counselling and treatment of alcoholism and other addictive illnesses.
