Gede’s Mental Health Dialogue Programme of the 11th February, 2015 was led by Ms Sade Samuel from New Beginnings Birth Centre. She gave a fascinating presentation on the importance of mental health in crisis situations within a clinical setting. She conducted a guided facilitation session where participants were made to put themselves in real life crisis scenario.

Through this exercise, she was able to bring out in the individuals present the various mental health issues which are often experienced in a crisis situation in clinical settings such as fear, anger, anxiety, shock, collapse, sadness, confusion, panic among others.
There was a general consensus thereafter that people who had suffered or experienced one crisis or the other needed psychosocial support by trained professionals in order to be mentally stable.

Those present noted the importance of ensuring that such services should, in an ideal world, always be available, especially in clinical settings. However, note was made of the 'treatment gap' in many low and middle income countries where the number of people needing mental health treatment is not matched by the number of those available to provide it. Gede's work in training HIV-AIDS Adherence Counsellors re mental health was seen as an important step in the right direction.