‘Respect rights of mental health patients’

The Managements of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Health Directorates (MMDHDs) of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) have been urged to respect the human rights of mental health patients like all other patients in the country.

A press statement on “Achievements and Challenges of Mental Health Service Delivery in the Brong-Ahafo Region,” issued by the Mission of Hope for Society International Foundation (MIHOSO), a Sunyani-based human rights centered Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) on Wednesday, in Sunyani, gave the advise.

The statement signed by Mr. Gabriel Gbiel Benarkuu, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and copied the Ghana News Agency said despite the enactment of the Mental Health Law 2012, Act 486 “some Managements of MMDHDs do not appreciate the Human Rights of patients of this category”.

According to the NGO, Directors of such Health Directorates usually questioned, “Why the nation wastes resources on epileptics and mentally ill people when health establishments can hardly meet their set targets,” it said.

The statement described such leaders as a “cog in the wheel of progress and therefore, had held the baton on the wrong edge by having that notion”.

“Our overall idea is for their inclusion as very normal health services, primary health service delivery requiring equal if not greater support in the scheme of things”, the statement said.

On its achievements, the statement said, in 2008, the NGO started a research and proposal development against a backdrop of increasing agitation for the better treatment of mentally ill persons due to harrowing reports of their marginalization and relative countrywide neglect.

It said in 2014, MIHOSO, in collaboration with Basic Needs Ghana, another Sunyani-based NGO, also with similar objectives and goals, launched a five-year Mental Health and Development Project with funding from the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID).

The statement said under the project, the NGO had set a target of reaching about 1,000 patients through the establishment of 23 Community Mental Health Service Units in all the eight Municipalities and 19 Districts in the region.

Currently MIHOSO has opened up access to identification, care and treatment of people living with mental health and epilepsy in 135 communities across all the Municipalities and Districts in the Region.

“Our main task therefore has been firstly to scale up training and capacity building for Psychiatric and Mental Health Officers/Nurses engaging the most competent and qualified resource persons to handle the trainees”, the statement said.

It said the NGO was also setting up self-help groups of mental health clients to advocate for their human rights, including their share of the two per cent disability fund from the District Assembly Common Fund at the Municipal and District Assemblies.