Mr. Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, the Health Minister, has announced that the Ministry was working on how to establish a Mental Health Levy.
He has also advocated an increase in budgetary allocation to enable mental health patients on the streets to be taken in small numbers at a time for treatment and sent back home to their communities.
“The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that 10 percent of the population of Ghana has one form of mental disorder or the other. Thus, with an estimated 31 million population in Ghana, we have an estimated 3.1 million with mental disorders,” he said on the floor of Parliament.
In October 2021, Ghana will join others in the continent to mark World Mental Health Day on the theme ‘Mental Health in an Unequal World’.
This theme, chosen for 2021, will highlight that access to mental health services remains unequal, with between 75% to 95% of people with mental disorders in low- and middle-income countries unable to access mental health services at all, and access in high-income countries is not much better.
Lack of investment in mental health disproportionate to the overall health budget contributes to the mental health treatment gap.
World Mental Health Day is observed on 10 October every year, with the overall objective of raising awareness of mental health issues around the world and mobilizing efforts in support of mental health.
The Day provides an opportunity for all stakeholders working on mental health issues to talk about their work, and what more needs to be done to make mental health care a reality for people worldwide.
Source: Mybrytfmonline.com/Kofi Atakora
