Psychiatric Hospitals Alarmed At Influx Of Cocaine

The rampant cases of cocaine in and out of Ghana and the serious health risk it poses has attracted concerns from the country?s psychiatric hospitals notably the Accra Psychiatric hospital.

The Chief Psychiatrist at the Accra Psychiatric hospital Dr. Akwasi Osei has warned of the rising incidence of mental illness in the country.

?The recent wave of seizures of cocaine and the extensive cultivation of cannabis in the country are all issues that should engage the attention of everybody that our mental health is in jeopardy?, he said.

In an address at the launching of Well-Mind Centre for Mental health in Accra on the theme: a sound and healthy woman, a happy home, Dr. Osei indicated that violence and crime had a vicious circle relationship with drug abuse and mental illness, just as poverty and mental illness, asking that those need to be dealt with for society to continue to enjoy freedom and peace.

Children, he said are suffering daily abuse of sexual defilement, trafficking among others.

According to the chief psychiatrist, the country?s life expectancy has risen from 45 years 50 years ago to 57 explaining that more people are now expected to live to old age adding that that also has its own health and mental health problems. Dr. Osei noted that when patients are treated, they need to provide after care services by way of rehabilitation, provision of jobs and reintegration into the community adding that all those situations mean preparing for increasing mental health issues.

In spite of all the need for mental health care, he said the resources for dealing with them are inadequate.

He further added that the country?s three psychiatric hospitals are all located down south in the country leaving the northern parts of the country underserved. The Acting Psychiatrist in charge of the Panteng Hospital Ama Pukl-Deadey also raised concerns about the state of mental illness in the country saying that the rate of drug abuse in the country was alarming.

She called for a holistic approach towards bringing the situation under control and advised that mental health cases should be taken seriously and basis facilities and needed equipment provided to make the living conditions of the inmates at the hospital conducive and worth living.

The Minister of health, Major Rtd. Courage Quashigah also in a speech read on his behalf said the high incidence of poverty had culminated in a low adult literacy rate of 32.5% with male/female ratio of 42:23 according to the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy of 2002-2004.

The health minister said research had shown that the interplay of related factors such as social isolation due to poverty, experience of childhood sexual abuse, domestic and sexual violence, overburden of domestic marital household family responsibilities among others are due to extreme [poverty and the application of cultural definition of the married woman tc "PSDYCHIATRIC HOSPITALS ALARMED AT INFLUX OF COCAINE"