Healthy minds in healthy bodies
The state of health of the human mind has often been said to correlate with the state of health of the body and that is why issues pertaining to mental health in general deserve prompt attention in all societies.
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When the HIV/AIDS epidemic was at its alarming heights sometime ago, it was a virtual death sentence to contract the disease. Luckily, science and technology have helped to develop anti-retroviral medicines which have prolonged the lives of many.
It has, however, been established that counseling and psychological therapy help a lot in the whole healing process. Just like the medicines, it takes resources to procure those services for mental health and that’s why we are somehow alarmed that the services are beginning to collapse in some parts of the country due to lack of money.
It seems a big chunk of the support for the counseling and psychotherapy services available for HIV/AIDS patients in this country comes from abroad. The moment those funds begin to dwindle, we start to feel the pinch because we ourselves don’t seem up to raising the necessary funds.
Ghana’s HIV/AIDS prevalence rate is said to be declining so we may assume that the few people who need those counseling and psychotherapy services could be overlooked. That could be dangerous thinking because no matter how few they are, they are still part of us and need to be taken care of.
We all know the sort of stigmatisation associated with mental health problems in this country and how patients had sometimes been left to their fate even when they had been declared fine enough to go home.
Contracting HIV/AIDS is in itself is a difficult matter to deal with and for patients to be left on their own to deal with the associated psychological problems is double jeopardy.
It is common knowledge that resources for all sorts of essential services are being cut all the time in this country. We, however, believe that certain services are so essential that they must be maintained by all means.
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People who have survived breast cancer, for instance, have been found to need constant encouragement and advice on how to cope with their situation.
HIV/AIDS patients also fall into that category and we urge organisations, corporations and individuals capable of helping to maintain this urgent mental health service to wholeheartedly offer whatever contributions they can bring to the table.
Some nations go to great lengths to ensure adequate provisions for citizens’ mental health. All nations cannot rise to the same levels at doing that but we must not neglect those whose well-being depend so much on the frequency and quality of psychological care that come their way.
We must act to help them now rather than later.