A growing, though still limited, number of counties have introduced dedicated mental health services at public health facilities, addressing a service gap that has long existed outside major urban referral hospitals.
The expansion includes training general clinical staff in basic mental health screening and, in some counties, deploying dedicated mental health nurses to sub-county hospitals.
Scale of the Gap
Mental health advocates note that despite this progress, the overall ratio of trained mental health professionals to population remains far below what is needed, particularly outside Nairobi and other major urban centers.
