Pass mental health bill now - Chief psychiatrist

Recurrent mental health issues will continue to persist in Ghana until parliament passes the mental health bill which has a funding mechanism within it to cater for the funding needs of psychiatric hospitals in the country, Chief Executive Officer of the Mental Health Authority, Dr Akwasi Osei has said.

According to him, the repetitive lack of money for food, disinfectants and medication for the inmates of the various psychiatric hospitals, can be blames on the absence of the law.

He said the “definitive solution is to get a law passed and get the law to be implemented. And the law, within it, has a funding mechanism, so, once you have the funding mechanism for the law and you have the money come in, then all these issues will be addressed,” Dr Osei told Prince Minkah on the Executive Breakfast Show on Class91.3FM on Monday, 24 October.

“Now we’ve managed to get through the first phase of getting the law passed but the law itself requires another law to fully implement it, and that’s the LI, so, once you have the legislative instrument; that is what prescribes exactly the funding mechanism. Unfortunately, the LI has been drafted, it’s ready but it’s not being passed. In fact there is one aspect that once we have that aspect cleared in it, then it can be passed and we can begin to get the money to support it – that aspect is the levy and the quantum of levy that will be determined. So either a new levy, mental health levy or part of existing levy and that is in the bosom of the ministry of finance to decide. … It’s being there for too long, frankly. Until we have that resolved, this issue will forever and ever remain,” Dr Osei lamented.

Dr Osei concerns follows threat by nurses at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital to go on strike after a one-week ultimatum to authorities to supply them with logistics to help them undertake their duties.

“We are hoping that from today till next week Friday [October 28], the government or the Minister or whoever is responsible will hear our cry and come to our aid and get us the things we need. If by Friday we do not hear from them, then we are going to embark on a strike,” the chairperson of the nurses, Jamila Hussein, threatened on Friday October 21.

The chairperson explained that detergents and other materials needed to sanitise the facility were not available, thus, leaving the nurses exposed to infection.

The leader said medicines for patients are also not readily available and patients and staff remain prone to attacks from violent inmates of the facility.

“The patients are either beating us or they are beating other patients. That is the situation now. Those detergents keep the place clean and in section three, the minimum hours a nurse spends in a ward is eight, so we are at risk. Some of us are even developing infections.”

The nurses are, therefore, calling on government to intervene lest they abandon their duties at the hospital.

This will not be the first time a strike action has been taken by the nurses. The nurses went on strike in August 2015 but called it off after government assured them that the money would be paid by the end of September.

One year after that incident, the nurses have not received their salaries.