Let’s make mental health care a priority

Facts from the World Health Organisation (WHO) indicate that in 2019, one in every eight people, or 970 million people around the world, was living with a mental disorder, with anxiety and depressive disorders being the most common.

The WHO further estimates that at any one time, a diverse set of individual, family, community and structural factors may combine to protect or undermine mental health.

Although most people are resilient, people who are exposed to adverse circumstances, including poverty, violence, disability and inequality, are at higher risk.

Protective and risk factors include individuals’ psychological and biological factors, such as emotional skills, as well as genetics.

Many of the risk and protective factors are influenced through changes in brain structure and/or function.

The gap between the need for treatment and its provision is wide all over the world and is often poor in quality when delivered. 
In both health facilities and communities, individuals with mental illnesses are often marginalised and stigmatised.

Apart from suicide, there are many other reasons for death due to mental illness.

Mental disorders increase the risk of substance abuse  and unhealthy eating habits.

And these can lead to other health problems, such as liver cirrhosis. In some cases, lifestyle and mental illness combine to raise the risk for other conditions.

Ghana’s mental healthcare system has many strengths and challenges and, according to the Ministry of Health (MoH), it is committed to de-institutionalising and integrating  mental health services into a variety of healthcare settings.

Ghana has an established mental health legislation and governing board.

A variety of evidence-based treatments are available at public psychiatric hospitals, and within communities, there are many non-governmental organisations that support self-help groups.

Despite the progress, challenges remain.

The distribution of mental health services is skewed towards the southern part of the country, with limited services available in the northern part.

Services and resources are largely concentrated in psychiatric hospitals, instead of more accessible community settings.

There is a significant treatment gap, especially for mood and substance use disorders. Additionally, there are systems-level challenges in financing psychotropic medications that limit their availability and procurement.

Shortages in human resource also persist, while social stigma linked to mental disorders remains prevalent and limits help-seeking.

Recently, the Ahafo Regional Minister, George Yaw Boakye, was on record to have said that the Bono, Bono East and Ahafo regions had no psychiatrist to help provide effective and efficient mental health care for the people in those regions.

The situation, according to him, was a reflection of the poor access to mental health care in the country, with a treatment gap of about 72 per cent.

The Daily Graphic is of the belief that to fix this, the world at large must stand behind the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and see mental health as a human right issue rather than regarding it as a separate issue.

Also, to make mental health a priority in the country, the paper believes there is the need for adequate funding for mental health care across the country.

So far, Ghana has only three public psychiatric institutions all based in the southern part of the country and we call on the government to make good its promise of building two more institutions in Kumasi and Tamale as part of the Agenda 111.

Also we call for more education on mental health in second-cycle institutions, so that the youth will be more aware of the dangers of drug and other substance abuse to help secure their mental health.

Also, the government must ensure that there are more psychotropical medicines available at the few psychiatric hospitals and other approved outlets so that people who need them can have easy access to them.