We are very pleased to announce that Dr. Ahongbonon has joined the staff as a full-time psychiatrist at Association Saint Camille. She is the daughter of founder, Gregoire. He and his wife, Leontine, have six children and one chose medicine! She completed medical school and residency at the university in Burkina Faso where the nurses at ASC also receive their training. She is making history as the first local, full-time psychiatrist, at ASC. Many thanks for your continued care and support to help ASC thrive and grow in so many special ways in the delivery of mental health care.

GREGOIRE RECEIVES AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION CHESTER M. PIERCE HUMAN RIGHTS AWARD AND SPEAKS TO THE CONVENTION IN NEW ORLEANS.

“We have to change the way we look at people who are fragile—because this is about humanity,” said Grégoire Ahongbonon, the founder of the Association Saint-Camille-de-Lellis (ASC), a comprehensive mental health care system in West Africa approved by the World Health Organization (WHO). Ahongbonon delivered the inaugural Chester M. Pierce Human Rights Award Lecture yesterday, titled “Person-Oriented Psychiatry: Changing the Way People With Mental Illness Are Viewed and Treated in West Africa and Around the World.”

Ahongbonon, who was born in Benin, developed depression in his 20s after experiencing a bankruptcy. He recovered and decided to dedicate his life to those in distress. In 1983, he founded ASC, where he worked with poor patients with leprosy or AIDS, prisoners, and homeless children. In 1990, upon discovering the plight of African psychiatric patients, whose human rights were blatantly violated, ASC began to house them and treat them with dignity.

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By James Grimm, MD

In 2015 the New York Times published a video, “Praying for a Cure”.  I have watched it many times, not believing the conditions under which these mentally ill individuals live.  Such confinement would hinder any treatment and they sadly often face a lack of options.

This was my introduction to the Association Saint Camille.  Its founder and director, Gregoire Ahongbonon, provided some initial comfort to my dismay.  His inspiration led to my first trip to Benin in January 2020. I was out of my professional comfort zone for the first time in years.  A tour of Saint Camille’s various treatment settings helped relieved any anxieties as I was greeted by clients singing and dancing. Equally uplifting was Saint Camille’s policy to provide care to anyone regardless of their ability to pay.  Such access gave hope for these individuals.

I will return to Saint Camille as it offered a practice of psychiatry that is both necessary and fulfilling.  There is no greater satisfaction than restoring someone’s dignity and allow them to achieve their potential.