13,731 children have reported to the facility with various mental disorders from 2015 to Sep. 2020
Data from the Pantang Psychiatric Hospital has revealed that about 1,419 children have reported to the hospital with various mental health conditions between 2017 and 2019.
Between 2015 and September this year, the Accra Psychiatric Hospital also had 13,731 children reporting to the facility with various mental disorders.
This was revealed at a workshop by a non-governmental organisation (NGO), Participatory Development Associates (PDA).
Themed “Inclusive Development for All”, the report further disclosed that mental illness was common in children and adolescents which started from childhood between the ages of six and 24 years.
Some of the mental health conditions include depression, emotional trauma and seizures according to a Daily Graphic report.
The documentary also revealed that most conditions in adults may have been from childhood which was ignored and developed into types of mental diseases that affected their lifestyle.
A documentary put together by the PDA team, entitled “The State of Child and Adolescent Mental Health in Ghana”, emphasised that everyone was susceptible to a mental health condition.
An occupational therapist at the Pantang Hospital in Accra, Ann Sena Fordie, also used the opportunity to call on government to help reduce the challenges in the mental health sector by including mental health service in the National Health Insurance Scheme.
“The mental health sector faces a lot of challenges when it comes to infrastructure, finances and personnel, and so we are calling on the government to include mental health services in the national health insurance scheme and also ensure that appropriate funds are disbursed to the right places to help improve mental health services in the country,” she said.
It further stressed that adolescent mental health ought to be taken seriously and that most parents disregarded the mental health of their children until it had developed into more serious conditions that could not be cured but only managed.
