Psychiatric Hospitals in the country will from next week stop admitting patients if funds are not released for the running of the facilities, Dr Akwasi Osei, Chief Executive Officer of the Mental Health Authority, has said.
“While the mental health board is still struggling to get onto its feet, we depend on the government to give us the wherewithal. Currently, the financial situation of the hospitals is not good at all,” he said.
Dr Osei who also doubles as the Chief Psychiatric Officer of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital said the three psychiatric hospitals are in a dire situation for which they need immediate remedies.
He said all three psychiatric hospitals which depend on government allocations have not received their funding, forcing them to reduce admissions.
“For the next week or so if we do not get any funding we might be forced to stop admissions,” he said.
The chief psychiatrist disclosed that during last year, there were 98,000 visits at the three psychiatric hospitals in the country with 35,000 diagnosed with mental health cases.
He also said that the country currently has only 11 practising psychiatric doctors operating in Ghana.
“We don’t have enough human resources and medicines to treat the patients,” he said.
Six months ago, psychiatric nurses at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital embarked on a sit- down strike over what they described as gross insecurity of their work.
Essential medicines like injectables often used in the management of psychiatric patients have been in short supply since December 2013 which the group described as an occupational hazard and general threat to their lives and patients under their care.
Mental Health Day
Mental Health Day is celebrated on October 10 each year to raise awareness of mental health and mental illness.
It is also used to encourage people to stop stigmatising and discriminating against the mentally-ill while calling on society to live up to its responsibility of giving the necessary help to the mentally ill.
Dr Osei speaking at this year’s event themed: ‘Living With Schizophrenia’ said the day is set aside for the mentally-ill to recognise that mental health is total health, emphasizing the importance of good mental health in wealth creation and for that matter the economic development of a country.
He said on an average one percent of every population worldwide has schizophrenia translating into about 250,000 Ghanaians out of the population of 25 million.
Fortunately, Dr Osei said the mental illness has an effective treatment; however, stigma has hindered many from seeking healthcare services.
“Now that today is being celebrated in the name of persons who live with schizophrenia, we need to recognise the difficulties such persons go through, the discrimination, emotional torture, the relatively high mortality rate amongst them and generally the marked reduction in the quality of life,” he noted.
Government Support
He commended government for its efforts in establishing the mental health board after the passage of the mental health bill.
“I wish to thank government for that,” he said.
Nana Oye Lithur in her remarks acknowledged the burden patients with schizophrenia put on family and society.
She, thus, called on families and society to treat people with schizophrenia with love, respect and dignity.
“Refer them to mental health facilities for early treatment,” she encouraged.
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(Nana Kwesi)