Shortages in supply and availability of
psychotropic medicines especially at district and sub-districts couple with non-drugs
therapeutic interventions in public facilities are virtually absents. Many of
the social interventions such as the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty
(LEAP) and the National Health Insurance Scheme and the 2 percent District
Assembly Disability Fund are also yet to benefit significant number of people
with mental health and their families. This and many other challenging
continues to exist, compounding the already worsen situation of mental health
in the country. For this reason, BasicNeeds-Ghana is calling on government to
increase its attention on providing resources for mental health for that matter
schizophrenia in the country. Speaking at this year’s World Mental Health Day
in Tamale, the Executive Director of BasicNeeds-Ghana, Yaro Badimak Peter says
whiles they commend government for its efforts in the mental health sector, they
think those efforts are not enough. Mental health care in Ghana has been
characterized by low prioritization in terms of personnel and infrastructure. Notwithstanding,
there are only three psychiatric hospitals with only twelve Psychiatrics in
active service which is depriving a huge chunk of people with mental health
problem access to health care service in Ghana. This however indicates that the
future of mental health in the country is bleak. Intervention by organizations like
BasicNeeds-Ghana cannot totally solve the mental health problems across the
entire country. Even though, government is making efforts, experts say it’s not
enough. In this regard, there is the urgent need for governments’ interventions
to ameliorate the situation before it gets out of hand.
Source:Saaka Alhassan
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