THE SCOTLAND MALAWI MENTAL HEALTH EDUCATION PROJECT

SMMHEP aims to help develop sustainable mental health services in Malawi, by supporting psychiatric teaching and training for doctors, medical students and other health care professionals, as well as supporting projects that promote quality improvement in mental health services in Malawi. The project has enjoyed close links with individuals and institutions in Malawi since 2006. 

Though previously involved primarily in supporting the delivery of psychiatry teaching to medical students at the Kumuzu University of Health Sciences in Blantyre, SMMHEP has shifted focus due to changes in local need and, since 2024, predominantly provide support to postgraduate psychiatry trainees doing the Master in Medicine course to become the equivalent of Consultant Psychiatrists. So far, three Psychiatrists have qualified via the support of SMMHEP-administered Scottish Government scholarships, and another Psychiatrist will complete their training later in 2025. There are a further two cohorts of trainees in Malawi who are not SMMHEP scholarship funded, but who the charity is supporting through the delivery of training and supervision. In the longer term, SMMHEP aims to support the Malawian government towards their goal of 20 qualified Consultant Psychiatrists in-country.  

Alongside training of medical students and doctors in psychiatry, previous projects include:

• The training of psychiatric nurses and clinical officers in Zomba Mental Hospital and Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, Blantyre.
• Development of the Malawi Quick Guide to Mental Health
• Training primary care health workers in mental health.
• Development of mental health e-learning materials.
• Helping fund and organise Annual Mental Health Conferences between 2011-2016 in Malawi that were attended by delegates from Malawi, other countries in sub Saharan Africa, the UK, Europe and the USA.

MENTAL HEALTHCARE IN MALAWI

Though beautiful and peaceful, the World Bank estimates that Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world. It has one of the lowest numbers of doctors per capita (1 per 50,000). Rates of mental illness in Malawi are at least as high as those in western and other developing countries. In spite of this, mental health services are very underdeveloped. with only four trained psychiatrists working in the country: a ratio of one psychiatrist to treat in the region of 6 million people. Three of these consultant psychiatrists were supported through their training by the Scotland Malawi Mental Health Education Project (SMMHEP).