The  situation, the Ahafo Regional Minister, George Yaw Boakye, said, was a reflection of the poor access to mental health care in the country, with a treatment gap of about 72 per cent.

In a speech read on his behalf at the opening of the World Health Organisation Director-General's Special Initiative for Mental Health (DG-SIMH) inception meeting in Goaso in the Ahafo Region last Wednesday, Mr Boakye expressed worry over the fact that locally and globally, mental health issues had been neglected and allowed to be suppressed by stigma and discrimination for a very long time, although mental disorders were responsible for about 30 per cent of the world disability burden.

Supporting his concern with some data, the regional minister said relative to the WHO benchmark of one psychiatrist:100,000 population, Ghana's psychiatrist:population ratio was 0.058 per 100,000 and 0.065 psychologist per 100,000 population.

WHO Special Initiative for Mental Health

The WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in 2021 set up the DG-SIMH to support the transformation of systems and scale-up of mental health services.

The goal of the initiative is to increase treatment coverage for mental health conditions by ensuring access to mental health care for about 100 million people in five years. 

Mental health cases

Giving a situational report on mental healthcare delivery in the region, the Ahafo Regional Mental Health Coordinator, James Gariba, disclosed that the health directorate recorded 1,309 new mental health cases in six different mental health conditions in 2022, compared to 1,538 in 2021.

Some of the conditions recorded included epilepsy, which is said to be common among young people between 20 and 29; schizophrenia, mental disorder due to alcohol use, mental disorder due to psychoactive use, depression and mental disorders not specified, such as bedwetting.

At the end of 2022, the directorate also recorded 3,175 re-attendance; that is, patients who visited health facilities each day to access treatment, as against 3,980 in 2021.

Mr Gariba said while the directorate was committed to helping deliver efficient mental health care, it was saddled with challenges that impeded its efficiency.

He mentioned weak structural capacity for district mental health focal persons, insufficient supply of programmed psychotropic drugs, inadequate funding for mental health activities and inadequate capacity building for workers as some of the challenges facing the mental health sector.

Crucial

The acting Regional Health Director, Dr Bernard Ziem, said even though mental health was crucial in the healthcare system, governments and other institutions worldwide had given less attention to the sector.

For her part, the Country Programme Officer of the WHO, Dr Joana Ansong, said mental health continued to be a priority for the WHO, with the vision that all people achieve the highest standard of mental health and well-being.

She said the region was one of the focus regions for the initiative, explaining that the meeting was to have stakeholders participate and subsequently develop a regional work plan which was well aligned to the national four-year plan.