‘Mentally challenged on streets defeats clean city agenda’
The Mental Health Authority (MHA) has said the government’s vision of making Accra the cleanest city in Africa cannot be attained if steps are not taken to clear the streets of mentally challenged people.
According to the Head of Communications at the authority, Mr Kwaku Brobbey, the activities of mentally challenged people on the streets contributed to littering and were a threat to pedestrians, since some of the latter could be violent.
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Steadily, the presence of mentally challenged people on the streets across the country is growing and the MHA attributes it to the lack of funds to provide medical care for them when they are taken off the streets and taken to health facilities.
“When their relatives come in and they realise that they can’t afford the mental health care, they get frustrated and leave their sick relatives on the streets,” he said.
In an interview with the Daily Graphic, Mr Brobbey said in order to clear the streets of mentally ill people, the government had to provide funds for the MHA to deliver free mental health care, as stipulated in the Mental Health Act.
Lack of funding
He said it was the government’s responsibility to fund mental healthcare delivery in the country, but over the years governments had failed to effectively discharge that responsibility, saying what was usually provided was woefully inadequate to sustain the facilities that provided the care.
He said under the Mental Health Act that became effective in 2012, mental health care must be free, but governments had not provided the needed funds to make health delivery efficient.
“Although the Mental Health Act 846 states that mental health care should be provided for free, at the moment that is not the case. We have not received seed money from the government into the Mental Health Fund since its establishment.
“Once a while when the psychiatric hospitals cry out that they need funds and threaten to shut down, the government comes in and gives some money to them, but this is not the kind of money that will ensure the delivery of quality health care for people who are mentally ill,” he said.
Provision of half-way homes
Mr Brobbey suggested that in order to clear the streets of mentally ill people, the government should provide half-way homes for the mentally challenged.
He said most mentally challenged people found it difficult being integrated back into society after treatment because most of them lost their basic social skills such as bathing, eating and relating with people.
A half-way home, according to him, provided that setting where they would build their social skills and learn to relate with people.
“It helps them become better people and fit well into society. This will also reduce the number of mentally challenged people in our psychiatric hospitals,” he added.