Psychiatric Hospitals to stop admissions

The three psychiatric hospitals will soon stop admissions of mental health patients unless funding is made available to the facilities, Dr Akwasi Osei, Chief Psychiatrist announced on Wednesday.

The facilities are Accra Psychiatric Hospital and Pantang Psychiatric Hospital in Greater Accra Region and the Ankaful Psychiatric Hospital in Central Region.

“Currently the financial situation of the hospitals is not good at all. All three hospitals have been forced to reduce admissions and in the next week or so if we do not get any funding we might be forced to stop admissions,” Dr Osei explained.

Speaking at a ceremony in Accra to mark 2014 World Mental Health Day on the theme: “Living with Schizophrenia,”Dr Osei said the psychiatric hospitals are in dire situation and there is the need for the government and the Minister of Health to “quickly redeem us’.

He, however, commended the government for constituting the Mental Health Board, which is setting up to work to improve mental health services.

Commenting on the Day, Dr Osei indicated that the theme was dedicated to persons living with schizophrenia, a mental health problem, belonging to a group of the most severe form of disorders of the mind, often leading to muddled and bizarre thinking, deterioration in lifestyle, distortions in the way one perceives reality, becoming out of touch with reality and lives in one’s own world.

He said if persons with such cases are left untreated they end up on the streets unkempt, adding that schizophrenia is a worldwide phenomenon.

He noted that on the average one per cent of every population worldwide has schizophrenia.

In Ghana that translates to 250,000 Ghanaians having schizophrenia out of the 25 million population.

Dr Osei indicated that data from the psychiatric hospitals over the years had also shown that among the patients visiting the facilities, there are between seven to 75 per cent of them being cases of schizophrenia.

In 2013, Ankaful recorded 7.8 per cent; Accra recorded 29.2 while Pantang recorded 55 per cent of Out Patient Department cases.

He explained that the phenomenon is, common in Ghana but many people do not recognize them and in most cases patients suffering from the disease are sent to inappropriate places like traditional healing centres and prayer camps where they are put in chains, starved, flogged and sexually abused or used for forced labour.

He said as the day is being celebrated, there is the need for the nation to recognise the difficulties such persons go through and also know that schizophrenia is treatable and therefore people should send their relatives with the condition for treatment at the hospitals.

Nana Oye Lithur, Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, who represented Ghana’s First Lady, Mrs Lordina Mahama at the event, said the human rights of persons with schizophrenia are always violated in the quest of relations seeking treatment for them.

She,therefore, urged traditional healers and operators of the prayer camps to continue to partner with mental health authority to treat relations with such cases in the most proper and acceptable ways.

She also asked that society should together ensure that mentally ill persons are not stigmatised and are treated with dignity, love and respect.

Professor Joseph B Asare, Board Chairman of Ghana Mental Health Board, asked government to act swiftly and provide funds to the psychiatric hospitals to continue to provide quality care for mental health patients.

In fraternal messages, various representatives from WHO, DFID/British High Commission, Ghana Mental Health Association and Mind Freedom Ghana all emphasized the need for public education and sensitisation of the phenomenon within the communities and also researching into schizophrenia in order to come out with critical solutions to contain it.