By Stanley Senya
Accra, Oct. 16, GNA – The District Governor Elect of Rotary International donates to two Rotary clubs to help renovate the Pantang Occupational Therapy Unit, Accra, to ensure mental health and well-being of patients.
The support is to enhanced and hasten the process of recovery and reintegration back into the society.
The Pantang hospital, which is the biggest and most patronized public psychiatric facility in the country, has an Occupational Therapy Unit for patients with mental health issues.
The Unit also helps patients to regain their functionality effectively in the community following discharge from the hospital.
The funds is set to provide sitting space for outdoor therapy through vocational experiences in dressmaking, ceramics and weaving to help persons with mental health to recover.
It aim at refurbishing the whole Occupational Therapy Unit to render quality services to patients.
Staffs from each Rotary club also pledged and donated GHC1,000 each to also support the Unit.
The District Governor Elect, David Osei Amankwah of Rotary International District 9102, in his remarks, said promoting good health was a communal responsibility and could best be achieved if organisations and stakeholders engage communities at large, work together to achieve targets.
“Having good mental health is important because it makes us resilient to illness; provides a feel good factor and we simply function better and are more positive in our relationships with our families, within our workplace and with those around us”, he said.
The Rotary endeavours to show leadership in many public health campaigns on a broad range of issues through its local clubs, he added.
The Director of Pantang Hospital, Mr Frank Barning, in his speech, said even though there were affordable and effective interventions to prevent and treat mental disorders, the treatment gap for Ghana is estimated to be 85 per cent and called for more awareness of mental health.
He said people suffering from mental disorders were likely to die ten years earlier than the general population.
“It is imperative without emphasis that mental health and conscious national effort to make it a national priority and invest adequately in it,” he said.
Dr Amankwa Arthur, Deputy Director, Health Promotion at Mental Health Authority (MHA), said mental health had not been prioritised because it was seen as secondary to physical health.
This is the underlining concept underpinning this year’s mental health day’s theme celebration ‘Make mental health and well-being for all, a global priority’.
This theme serve as a clarion call for all of us, to prioritize our mental health and wellbeing.
He said it behoves key stakeholders in the mental health space to forge ahead in improving on the quality of care offered in our facilities to help bridge the inequities brought about by the recent world order.
He said the MHA would continue to engage key stakeholders to push for the establishment of
the Mental Health Levy, since it was the way to significantly mitigate the funding challenges of the Authority and project the MHA to execute it mandate.
“It is the hope of the MHA that this initiative would cause changes in the lives of our patients’ community and that the community would become more knowledgeable, empowered and confident to lead a worthy life,” he added.
He urged organisations and stakeholders to come on board with ideas and strategies to support the MHA in any way possible.
GNA