Koforidua (E/R), Jan 22, GNA – The Eastern Regional Hospital, through its Restoring Dignity Project, has rescued 24 persons living with mental illness from the streets of Koforidua.
The project aims to rescue and treat persons living with psychosocial disorders roaming the streets and help reintegrate them with their families.
Ms Akosua S. Bonsu, the Eastern Regional Mental Health Coordinator and Clinical Psychologist, told the Ghana News Agency in an interview that persons living with mental illness could be treated.
However, she said, the process required adequate support from society, families, churches, and other stakeholders, especially within the location of the clients.
She said the project, which commenced in 2013 and ended in 2018, provided enough evidence to confirm that persons living with mental illness on the street could be treated and live meaningful lives.
”Some of the patients rescued had no family members in the Eastern Region. Some hail as far as from the Ashanti, Western, Bono, Ahafo, and Central regions,” he said.
A number of them have been treated but it is difficult to trace and locate their families for reintegration as several of them are unable to provide reliable addresses.
However, Ms Bonsu said: “The hospital is still taking care of one beneficiary of the project, who is deaf, because of difficulty in tracing his family.”
Client management before treatment, need for support and acceptance by family after their recovery formed part of the project.
Some families, due to stigmatisation, had difficulties accepting their relations who had fully recovered, she said.
Ms Bonsu said discrimination and stigmatisation remained a limitation to the project in addition to inadequate funding, which did not allow officials to do effective follow-ups on clients discharged.
She acknowledged some financial support the project received from the Mental Health Authority that had contributed to the success story.
To mitigate the challenges, Ms Bonsu said the second phase of the project would focus on creating a “halfway home” to facilitate the rehabilitation of clients through skills acquisition following hospital treatment.
“This will equip clients to be less dependent on families who may already be financially burdened,” she said, and appealed to stakeholders such as religious bodies for support.
“If every church will adopt at least one client on the street, just to support their treatment and rehabilitation, our streets will be cleared of persons living with mental illness.”
Reports from the Eastern Regional office of the Ghana Health Service indicated that the region recorded 3,670 persons living with mental illness as of mid-2021.
That, Ms Bonsu said, was an increase over the mid-2020 figures, though she could not readily provide figures to buttress her claim.
Unfortunately, she noted that many people misconstrued the causes of mental illness to be the reward for wrongdoings.
“Clinically, there are various causes of the disorder. It is high time we focused on how to help persons living with mental illness than on this misconstrued cause,” she said.
Mental health experts mention some of the causes as injury to the brain following a traumatic accident, hereditary, and stress.
GNA