The Alliance for Mental Health and Development in the Upper East Region, says a three year reported shortage of drugs for mental patients in the Upper East Region, is worsening the conditions of patients there.
It has thus urged government to as a matter of urgency provide the psychotropic drugs needed to avert any further consequences.
The Alliance comprising Regional and Districts psychiatric nurses, traditional mental healers and NGOs working in the area of mental health at a quarterly meeting held in Bolgatanga, said the situation currently accounts for the many cases of relapse in relation to patients.
They bemoaned how for the past three years the situation has persisted without any intervention from government.
Speaking to Citi News, a principal psychiatric nursing officer at the Regional hospital, Ayamga Clement, said “one major challenge confronting mental health delivery in Upper East Region is about the shortage of psychotropic drugs and they are also very costly for our clients to purchase as well as the anti-epileptic drugs and because of this some of the patients get a lot of relapses”.
Another Senior Psychiatric nurse, Adiak Frederick, said “I will describe it as a chronic shortage of psychotropic drugs because since 2013, we have not gotten supply of these psychotropic drugs from government”.
He also lamented that, most of their staff do not have transportation to provide community mental health services, adding that, some facilities do not even have spaces for psychiatric nurses to work.
Project manager of Basic Needs Ghana, a mental health NGO, and a facilitator for the Alliance, Bernard Azuure, outlined the causes for the perennial shortage of psychotropic drugs, and impressed on government to urgently address the situation.
He appealed to government to pass the Legislative Instrument (L.I) for the full operations of the Mental Health Act to address the shortage of psychotropic drugs for effective delivery of mental health in the region.
–
By: Frederick Awuni/citifmonline.com/Ghana