Employers urged to prioritise mental health of employees
Employers have a key role to play in safeguarding the mental well-being of their employees.
Consequently, they must do well to roll out interventions that prioritise their mental health and well-being.
The Deputy Head of Communication of the Mental Health Authority, Dr Josephine Darko, who stated this, suggested that employers must have programmes such as employee assistance programmes at their workplaces that could offer various forms of support to employees with mental health problems.
This, she said, included giving them time off to visit their psychologists and also taking care of their medical bills.
"Most people spend a lot of time at work and the work itself can affect their mental health. It is the employers' responsibility to safeguard the employees' mental health in the workplace.
“So employers have a big role to play. Remember, if your workers are mentally well, just as they are physically well, their work will go on well," she said.
Dr Darko was speaking at a media orientation workshop on responsible and ethical reporting on mental health and special needs organised by Empowering Better Life Foundation (EBLF) in Accra.
It was on the theme, "Breaking the stigma: responsible and ethical reporting on mental health and special needs."
Dr Darko, who is also a psychiatrist at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, said if somebody at a workplace had a mental illness, it was similar to an employee who has hypertension or diabetes and so needed time to go for reviews, adding that “it is illegal for any employer to lay somebody off because they have a mental illness.”
Support
On the role society could play in supporting people with mental illness, she advised them to get rid of the stigma they attach to people who have those conditions, explaining that almost anything could affect one's mental health.
"Who you are, the family you are born into and the genes you inherit from relatives can all affect your mental health.
If you have been through certain experiences, certain trauma, all forms of abuse, including neglect, emotional, physical and sexual abuse, can affect your mental health," she explained.
Dr Darko mentioned some of the things that could help people to maintain their mental health to include eating well and exercising.
"When someone is going through mental health challenges, they are not motivated to even get out of bed, to maintain personal hygiene, to come out and do what they are supposed to do.
They lose that pleasure they have, that joy in doing whatever they have to do," she added.
Accurate reporting
The Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the EBLF, Alma Adade-Prempeh, explained that the training was meant to equip journalists with the knowledge to report accurately and with sensitivity on mental health and children with special needs.
She said the training formed part of the EBLF's commitment to fashion a better society that empowers rather than stigmatises those with mental illness and children with special needs.
Speaking on reporting on children with special needs for impact, the Executive Director of Special Mothers Project, Hannah Awadzi, urged journalists that when reporting on a child with special needs, they should focus on the individual child instead of generalising the condition because the condition is different with everybody.
