The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has at the end of the 2023 midyear recorded 40,716 new cases of mental health, which includes neurological and substance use disorder, says the Director General, Dr Kumah Aboagye.
Out of the number, 51.4 per cent of the new mental health cases are females.
Dr Aboagye disclosed these figures in a speech read for him at the national World Mental Health Day celebration at the Oti Regional capital here in Dambai on Tuesday.
It was held on the theme: "Mental Health is a Universal Human Right", and attended by Municipal and District Chief Executives (MDCEs), Municipal and District Health Directors (MDHD), mental health professionals and civil society organisations.
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The Director General of the GHS expressed concern about the high number of mental health cases being recorded in the country, and stressed that his outfit was committed to providing quality and safe mental health services to the citizenry.
Dr Aboagye said mental health was a universal human right that cut across colour, gender, age, geographical location, language, religious, socioeconomic status, and added that mental health knew no boundaries because it was a state of well-being in which an individual realised his or her own abilities, and could cope with the normal stresses of life, among others.
He said the GHS was committed to progressive improvement on provision of quality mental health service that was safe, timely, effective, efficient, equitable, people-centred, right-based and integrated, which had better outcomes for all individuals, families and communities.
According to Dr Aboagye, his outfit would continue to sensitise both health and non-health professionals in the Quality Right Programme (QRP), which would build the capacity of human rights into other in-service care providers to identify and manage mental, neurological and substance use disorders.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Mental Health Authority (CEO), Dr Pinaman Apau, explained that the national celebration was held in the Oti Region to create awareness on mental health, causes and treatment because it was discovered that many of the residents in the region associated mental health with evil spirits.
Dr Apau advocated for mental health education to be part of the school curricular at the basic and second cycle levels of education to address the stigma associated with mental health patients, and added that when the youth were effectively educated on mental health in school, it would promote public awareness and also remove stigmatisation.
Ghana Country Representative of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Professor Francis Kasolo, said his organisation would continue to work with partners to ensure that mental health was valued, promoted, and protected, and urgent steps would be taken on mental health issues to ensure that everyone could exercise their human rights and access the quality health care they needed.
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The Oti Regional Minister, Dr Joshua Makubu, said access to affordable mental health care was important, and efforts were being made in the region to provide mental health facilities at the health centres to promote mental health care in the region.
The President of the Oti Regional House of Chiefs (ORHC), who is also the Krachiwura, Nana Mprah Besemuna III, who chaired the occasion, called on the GHS to provide recreational facilities for mental health patients in the 16 regions under their care to avoid mental health patients loitering in towns, cities and villages.
