'Don't stop the music': songs bring hope to a Nigerian psychiatric unit

There is a huge mental health treatment gap across Africa, but in one Nigerian hospital, music therapy is having a positive impact

The music comes on - a soft blend of guitar, saxophone, piano - and people sit still at first, then heads start to sway to the sound. Some hum along; mostly they sing, or laugh and dance. At the end, when quiet returns, their mood is assessed - as it was when the session started.

Once or twice a month, Bola Otegbayo brings a team of singers and instrumentalists into this psychiatric unit at University College hospital (UCH) in Ibadan, Nigeria. Otegbayo realised a few years ago that some of her patients were lonely even though their loved ones visited and caregivers provided succour. So she began to share music. Now she is a musicologist alongside her main job as a renal technologist.