Two bodies to train mental health personnel

The College of Health and Well-Being, Kintampo ( CoHK) and its United Kingdom ( UK) partners, The Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust, have decided to train more mental health personnel to serve in rural and under-served communities in all the 230 districts of the country.
Lack of trained mental health workers  to provide quality mental health service at the community level and to help decongest the three psychiatric hospitals in the country necessitated the partnership.

The partnership dubbed the Kintampo Project, a collaboration between the  CoHK and its UK partners and  the Ministry of Health (MOH) is aimed at training and developing a new community mental health workforce for Ghana.

The project, which was rolled out in 2011, has so far trained  over 200 mental health practitioners, namely the Community Mental Health Officers (CMHOs) and Clinical Psychiatric Officers (CPOs) who are providing vital services and raising awareness of mental illness in the country.

Since its inception in 2011 to date, the project has helped to treate 222,114 people with mental illness and has projected to treat a total of 342,220 people by 2018.

Speaking at a two-day workshop on the theme, “Empowering the Mental Health Workforce,” at the maiden annual general meeting ( AGM) of the CMHOs and CPOs at Kintampo in the Brong Ahafo Region, the Chief Psychiatrist,  Dr Akwasi Osei, called for a paradigm shift in mental healthcare delivery in the country from institutional care to a community based care.

To this end,  he said plans were under way to decentralise mental healthcare to the community level and this would ensure that all the 10 regional hospitals as well as district hospitals in the country had psychiatric wings  while training would be provided for all health workers to provide basic mental health.

He noted that currently all the nation's resources were spent on the three mental hospitals in the country all located in the southern sector of the country  and, therefore, lauded the Kintampo Project for the initiative to train middle level mental health professionals to provide mental healthcare in rural and deprived communities.

Dr Emmanuel Teye Adjase, the Director of the CoHK, for his part, challenged mental health practitioners to play their part with dedication and zeal to ensure a healthy and productive citizenry to champion the socio-economic advancement of the country.

He reiterated the need to de-emphasise  institutional care in connection with mental healthcare.

A Community Psychiatrist from UK and Kintampo Project Educator, Dr Steve Brown, emphasised the need for Continuing Professional Development (CPD), saying research had shown that workers who upheld CPD had higher morale and were more effective on their job.

An Associate Dean for Educational Development for Wessex Deanery in UK and Kintampo Project Educator, Dr Rosie Lusznat, announced that since 2011,approximately 300 CPOs and CMHOs had been trained resulting in 17 per cent increase in the overall mental health workforce in Ghana.

A communique issued by CMHOs and CPO and signed by Mr Ransford Osei, National President, at the end of their AGM appealed to the government and health authorities to give definite response and specific time frame to their challenges.

By Samuel Duodu/Daily Graphic/Ghana