World Mental Health Day: We need more psychiatrist, mental hospitals - Family Physician calls on govt

Correspondence from Western Region

A family physician at Redeemer Hospital, Tarkwa, Dr Alfred Duah Adjapong is calling on the government to train more psychiatrists and also build more mental health hospitals in Ghana to cater to mental health issues in the country.

He said the number of mental health facilities and psychiatrists in the country is not enough to deal with the menace, which is making it difficult to deal with.

Speaking to GhanaWeb in an interview on World Mental Health Day, Dr Agyapong noted that mental health disorders affect almost everyone in society in one way or another.

“Mental health disorders include stress, bipolar disorders such as depression, mania, hypo mania, anxiety disorders, and suicide among others, so everyone can have any of these at any time, hence the need to get more facilities and psychiatrist to deal with this,” he stated.

Dr Adjapong acknowledged that, though the government has tried opening mental health units at the various district hospitals, it is prudent to get specialized hospitals to take care of people who have mental issues.

He added that the few mental hospitals available had issues with procurement of medications to take care of persons and that he said was one of the challenges facing the treatment of mental illness.

He was quick to add that the intervention of the Mental Health Authority has played a significant role in making medical supplies better, assuaging the stress mental healthcare givers go through in procuring the medications.

This year’s World Mental Health Day was celebrated on the theme; ‘Mental health is a universal human right”, to improve knowledge, raise awareness and drive actions that promote and protect everyone’s mental health as a universal human right.

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