Psychiatric hospitals out of medicines — CEO laments

There are no medicines for mental patients in all the three psychiatric hospitals in the country, Dr Akwesi Osei, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Mental Health Authority (MHA) has lemneted to the Ghana News Agency.

Consequently, the hospitals—the Accra Psychiatric Hospital, Ankaful and Pantang—are forced to source medicines from private pharmaceutical companies for mental health patients at a fee.

“Persons with mental illness in the streets are supposed to be taken out of the street and treated free of charge but we do not have the funding to do that…,” he said.

Dr Osei said the Authority was supposed to get about 28 million cedis worth of medicines every two years, but now, “all we get is 5 million cedis worth of medicines every two years.”

He said it had not received any funding from the government since the beginning of this year and that it was to be provided with GHC250,000 for the first quarter to run its operations.

“The MHA requires 7 million cedis to run its operations in a year while the three psychiatric hospitals require not less than GHC30 million…”

Dr Osei said the Accra Psychiatric Hospital owed its suppliers over 2 million cedis while Ankaful had been sent to court for its inability to pay debts.

He said the financial challenges had made it difficult for the country to fully implement its Mental Health Act 846 of 2012 after ten years of passage.

Parliament on March 2, 2012, passed the mental health act into a law to ensure the right and quality treatment of persons with mental disorders, and to stipulate changes to the organisation, provision, and funding of mental health services.

Dr Osei said the Act had not been fully implemented due to the government’s inability to establish a Mental Health Levy as mandated by the Law to provide adequate funding for all mental health issues.

“The government has not been able to establish a mental health levy for the past ten years, and due to the absence on the levy there is no funding to implement provisions in the Act as expected.”

Dr Osei said mental healthcare in Ghana could be free as provided in the Act only if the levy was in place or if the government provided adequate funding for mental health care services.

He said mental health was still challenged with stigma and discrimination because there was no funding for regular public engagement on mental illness.

“Discrimination of persons with mental illness persist because, due to lack of funding, we have not been able to establish the Mental Health Tribunal to seek redress for persons with mental illness whose rights have been abused,” Dr Osei added.