"750,000 Ghanaians Have Mental Problems"

Professor Joseph Bediako Asare, former Chief Psychiatrist of the Ministry of Health, has said about 750,000 Ghanaians are suffering from severe mental disorders. Another group of 2,410 are also suffering from mild or moderate forms of mental disorder, Prof Asare stated at the presentation of a Mental Health Survey report in Accra. He said the survey discovered that the current funding for Mental Health Services in Ghana was inadequate, whilst most services were provided only through the three major hospitals in Accra and Cape Coast. He cited scarcity of day care services for mental health, scarcity of in-patients bed outside Accra and Cape Coast and scarcity of services for children as some of the survey�s findings. Prof Asare said according to the survey findings, the few services provided outside the capital were mostly provided by nurses and a few generalist doctors due to insufficient psychiatrists. He recommended the commissioning of a team to produce an implementation plan based on best practices, the baseline information available and to come out with recommendations for mental health systems. Prof Asare called for a campaign to sensitise the public and other stakeholders on the Mental Health Act. He said the Act ensures that standards, conditions and rights becomes relevant to prevent the abuse of people with mental disorder. It also encourages early identification and prompt treatment of mental disorder in primary care at the district, general hospital level and discourage admission to the three state-run psychiatric institutions which are often far from home, difficult and costly for families to visit and stigmatized by society. Mr. Roger Mettle-Nunoo, deputy Minister of Health, expressed concern that mental health as a speciality had been neglected in many countries including Ghana. He said the mental health sector in Ghana for example did not receive its share during the institutional reforms of the health sector in the early nineties and that �the establishment of the Ghana Health Service did little to change the practice and management of the mental health unit of the health service�. Mr. Mettle-Nunoo said the brief presentation ceremony sought to lay bare the baseline of mental health systems in the country as at the end of 2011. He said the findings would provide a basis for making informed decisions in the implementation of the new Mental Health Act. Dr Mark Roberts, a Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist at the Kintampo College of Health who presented the findings, said that the WHO-AIMS were used to collect information on the mental health system and it would be used to improve the mental health system. He noted that all the 230 Districts in Ghana were surveyed together with a unique addition of the survey of ten traditional and faith based practitioners respectively in each of the ten regions. The survey which noted that an initiative of the Ghana Health Service was supported by grants from the Ministry of Health, the United Kingdom�s Department for International Development Health Partnership Scheme, Southern Health Foundation Trust, UK and the Kintampo College of Health.