Basic Needs-Ghana organises workshop on mental health care
Project Coordinator of Basic Needs-Ghana, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) committed to mental health care, Mr Dokurugu Adam Yahaya, has called on the Ghana Health Service (GHS) to integrate the services of prayer camps, as well as spiritual and traditional healers into the provision of mental health care in the country.
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He said in Ghana, prayer camps, spiritual and traditional healers “are the most common and first port of call for mental health care services” at the community level.
According to him, since the country could not entirely do away with the services of the prayer camps, spiritual and traditional healers in the provision of mental healthcare services, it ought to properly integrate them into the formal mental health care services.
Training
Mr Yahaya said this in an interview with the Daily Graphic after the NGO (Basic Needs-Ghana) organised a day’s sensitisation workshop in Tamale for prayer camps managers, spiritual and traditional healers in the Northern Region.
It was on the theme: “Improving community mental health through collaboration with faith-based and traditional healers in the mental health care”.
The workshop, which saw more than 30 participants drawn from six districts in the region, was funded by the Department for International Development (DFID-Ghana) under the Accountable Grant Scheme.
Participants were taken through training in common mental disorders, best practices and the rights of mentally ill patients.
Mr Yahaya said since many Ghanaians believed that mental illness was caused by spiritual forces, they tended to seek treatment from the prayer camp managers, spiritualists and traditional healers.
According to him, access to quality community-based mental health care in the country was generally low and highly inadequate.
Abuses
Mr Yahaya, however, expressed the worry that although prayer camps managers, spiritualists and traditional healers had played a key role in the provision of the mental health care in the country, some tended to abuse the rights of the mentally ill patients in their care.
The Northern Regional Mental Health Coordinator, Mr Mumuni Fuseini, for his part, advised prayer camp managers, spiritualists and traditional healers to refer cases beyond their control to mental health units at the various health facilities in the region.
