Dr Akwasi Osei, Chief Psychiatrist, on Thursday called for the immediate passage of the Mental Health Bill into law to help ensure adequate funding for mental health care delivery.
According to him the three psychiatric hospitals currently owe various organizations about 4.5 million Ghana cedis while the Accra Psychiatric Hospital alone spends about 7,000
Ghana cedis a day on patients.
Dr Osei, who made the call at the close of the Annual Mental Health Performance Review Meeting in Cape Coast, stressed that the passing of the bill would facilitate the holistic overhaul of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) as it will decentralize mental health to guarantee a cost effective care for all.
The two-day meeting was to assess the success chalked and evolve measures to deal with the challenges facing mental health care delivery.
Dr Osei explained that a mental health law would not only help protect and ensure the rights of the mentally ill but also be incorporated into the general health care delivery of the country.
He enumerated some of the challenges facing the mental health care service and said inadequate human resource had been the bane of quality delivery.
The Chief Psychiatrist said Ghana had 12 psychiatrists, three clinical psychologists and about 600 psychiatric nurses with no occupational therapist.
He gave the ratio of one psychiatrist to two million people adding that suicide cases were on the ascendency and since 90 percent of suicide cases were mental health issues, there was
the need to address problems facing that sector with dispatch.
Dr Osei said only half of the annual budget allocated to that sector is paid while all three psychiatric hospitals were located in the southern part of the country and appealed for the
construction of a mental health institution in northern part.
Chief Cokar Asaam, Deputy Director of Pharmacy of Psychiatric Medicines, in his annual report, stressed the need for the introduction of new psychiatric medicines to save patients from “unpleasant side effects” like diabetes and
impotency associated with the old drugs.
He revealed that patients also got addicted to the medication after treatment hence the issue of having to deal with addiction after patients were cured was necessary.