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20.04.2010 Health

Conference on Mental Health opens in Accra

By GBC
Conference on Mental Health opens in Accra
20.04.2010 LISTEN

A conference on Community Mental Health has opened in Accra to empower people with mental illness and epilepsy and their primary care givers.

The conference focuses on increasing the role of users in Community Mental Health.  Mental users are people who have experienced mental illness or epilepsy.   It will strengthen existing partnerships and new ones will be established to achieve a greater impact on sustainable development.

It is expected that decisions reached from the conference will benefit people with mental illness and epilepsy in Ghana and Nigeria.  

The Minister of Employment and Social Welfare, Enoch Tei Mensah noted that, stigmatization is one of the major challenges facing people with mental problems, adding  that, there is the need to discuss mental health issues on various social platforms to educate people on mental health and its associated problems.  

The out-going Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health and the Deputy Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, Dr. Mustapha Ahmed called for the review of the mental health law.  He noted that since the law is outmoded, it is unable to capture the needs of mental health users.

He stated that the Parliamentary Select Committee has discussed the draft bill with the Minister of Health which will soon be sent to cabinet.  

The Chief Psychiatrist at the Psychiatric hospital, Dr. Akwasi Osei said the absence of mental users in the formulation of government policies concerning mental health is wrong since they should have a say in determining their needs.  

He attributed the delay in the passage of the Mental Health Bill into law to the lack of a strong user group to advocate and push the bill to parliament

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