'Don’t call them ‘mad’'
A Clinical Psychologist at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Ghana, Alfred Nii Nortey Duah, has appealed to the general public to desist from calling persons with mental illness “mad” or “lunatics.”
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He said mental illness like any other disease was curable and that patients could recover fully when families and societies provided support for such patients.
“Recovery from mental diseases is very possible but the way society stigmatises people with such issues does not encourage recovery. Certain jokes and comments we make regarding these people prolong their recovery period and affect them negatively. Once treated, people should be able to embrace them and accept them back into the society,” he pointed out.
Speaking at a media forum on mental health in Accra last week, he said a person with mental health issues only suffered from a disease in the mind and that did not mean they were not intelligent.
He said factors such as poor quality care in mental hospitals and other psychiatric facilities, high cost of treatment and stereotyping of people with mental issues contributed to the increasing number of mental health cases in the country.
Negative attitudes
Professor J.B. Asare, Chairman of the Mental Health Authority Board, noted that we live in a society where people associated mental illness to spiritual causes and curses.
“As a result some patients are chained in traditional and spiritual healing centres and are taken through certain inhumane treatments,” he added.
He said even after treatment, such people were disrespected by the society through their comments and actions and were restrained from performing certain duties that they did before.
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He said the mass media, especially local movie producers, had contributed to deepening the stereotyping as they kept portraying people with mental illness as dirty, unintelligent and even in some cases outcasts.
Professor Asare, who drew attention to the high cost of psychiatric drugs, said the cost could be reduced if companies were given the licence to produce the drugs locally.
Doctor-patient ratio
Data provided by BasicNeeds-Ghana, organisers of the forum, indicated that of the 12 psychiatrists currently in Ghana, majority of them were working in psychiatric hospitals located in the southern-coastal parts of the country leaving the other parts under served.
It said the only psychiatrist in the Brong Ahafo Region has recently retired from active service while only one psychiatrist serves the whole of the Northern Region. The Upper East and Upper West regions have no resident psychiatrist with the Eastern, Volta and Western regions relying barely on a psychiatrist each.
As a result, there is an increased burden of care on the current professionals at post.
The huge gap left by the inadequate human resource is filled by the traditional and spiritual healers.
According to the Executive Director of BasicNeeds-Ghana, Badimak Peter Yaro, though these traditional healers provided an alternative for healing mental illness, such services must be within the confines of acceptable practices and must not harm or infringe on the rights of the patient.