Foundation to deliver mental health established in Ghana
A branch of a charity organisation that deals with mental health has been established in Ghana with the objective to help provide treatment for individuals with psychological and mental problems in a dignified manner through care packages.
A founding member of the foundation,
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Ankaful
“The foundation aims to work in conjunction with mental health doctors and nurses from the UK who will visit Ghana on
She said the programme would focus more on children.
About 2.4 million Ghanaians have experienced one form of mental illness with only two
More so, there are only 600 qualified psychiatric nurses in the country and the Accra Psychiatric Hospital, which was established in 1906 with the capacity to house 800 patients, now has in excess of 1000 patients.
Psychiatric hospitals
There are three psychiatric hospitals in Ghana – the Accra, Ankaful and Pantang hospitals – which are currently confronted with major challenges, including the lack of adequate funds to resource them and the fact that there is only one psychiatric doctor.
She said the foundation’s mission was also to help improve the knowledge of psychiatric hospital staff by way of arranging training programmes for them, to be run by British health professionals, together with an exchange programme with the British NHS.
Ugandan model
The Butabika-East London link is a multi-disciplinary and an institution to institution partnership between the East London NHS Foundation Trust and the Butabika National Referral Hospital in Uganda.
She said the partnership had been instrumental in transforming mental health practice in Uganda, having given it a focus on training and development, service user involvement
“We intend to replicate the same model in Ghana for it to be the game changer in transforming Ghana’s mental health situation,” she added.
With support from the Ministry of Health, the Ghana Mental Authority and the Diaspora Relations Department at the Presidency, the foundation will hold two mental health awareness campaigns in March and October every year, to
She said the foundation would also host a group of volunteer psychiatric professionals in March and October every year, who would render services in less endowed facilities in the country.