Strike looms in mental health sector as gov’t is yet to release GHC28m needed

Government is yet to release funds for the smooth operation of the three main psychiatric hospitals in the country and the Mental Health Authority, a situation that could trigger a strike action by mental health care professionals in the country, Head of the Mental Health Authority, Dr. Akwesi Osei, has said.

According to the Mental Health Authority, each of the three main psychiatric hospitals in the country and the Authority, needs about GHC7m per anum to run smoothly. But, almost six months into the year, the sector has not received any form of funding to operate.

All along, we thought there is a new government and so we appreciated that it will take a little while, but almost two quarters gone and it is certainly getting too much.

The situation is horrible, and cannot be worse than it is now. So, the next thing that we might be seeing is an interruption from the nurses which might take various forms; withdrawal of services, strike action, and industrial action. These are the very things that we have been trying to avoid all along,” Dr. Osei said.

Successive governments have not fully met the requirements and needs of the mental health sector. Indeed, in 2016, though GHC7million was requested by the Authority for the smooth running of mental health institutions, only GHC216,000 was made available.

As for the budget, for a very long time they have never been able to meet it. It is not a need-based budget, because the government decides that this is just what they can give you, and you have to plan your budget within it, which is very unrealistic, anyway.

At least give us something to work with, but now, even what they budgeted for is yet to be released, Dr. Osei lamented.

The recurring funding challenges in the mental health sector, last year, led to strikes and threats to close down facilities last year. Nurses at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital laid down their tools in October 2016, for a little over a week, to press home their demand for what they described as unfair treatment by the government of the day.

They complained of inadequate supply of medicines, and lack of basic logistics resulting in unsanitary working conditions.

To further compound the situation, mental health facilities across the country are saddled with about GHC11m debt as a result of credit purchases over a three-year period.

Dr. Osei indicated that the psychiatric hospitals have managed to survive for the past six months by continuously buying items from suppliers on credit, and charging patients high fees for services rendered when by law, service delivery should be free.

Psychiatric hospitals have been borrowing items from suppliers who have been kind enough to supply them on credit. They have also been putting charges on patients when normally, they should not have done. But, that is the only way they can survive.

So, for instance, if you have to send a patient to the hospital and the patient will be admitted, in the past, all you need to do was to just send them and that was all.

Now, they will calculate everything for you to pay and by the time you leave the place, you probably may have spent close to about GHC1,000. A It may not mean much to many people but that is a lot of money for a psychiatric patient, Dr. Osei said.

He urged Parliament to pass the Legislative Instrument (LI) which will ensure the operationalization of the Mental Health Act of 2012 (Act 846).

The passage, he said, will allow for the implementation of the details of the Act, which among other things, will specify a mental health levy that will go into a fund to support mental health care delivery.