The organisation believes this calls for enhanced cooperation in the area of infrastructure and technical support to revamp Ghana’s wobbling mental healthcare system.

Ghana’s Mental Health Authority has on countless occasions remarked negatively about the state affairs with respect to the heavily underfunded nature of the mental healthcare system of the country.

This, according to the authority, coupled with the drastic deterioration of pre-existing infrastructure, does little to address the psychological needs of Ghanaians.

Speaking in an interview with Blessed Sogah on Foreign Affairs on JoyNews, World Health Organisation representative to Ghana, Professor Francis Kasalo, expressed worry about the trend in Ghana.

“It is in Ghana, for example, that out of the population of almost thirty million, it is estimated that almost 2.4 million have a form of mental illness. That’s not a small number, and if you are looking at that number, why are we not investing in ensuring that those people receive appropriate care? So the numbers are huge,” he said.

The WHO country representative says a major factor complicating mental healthcare delivery in Ghana is the attitude of the general public toward the health condition, which is most likely to be treated as a light-hearted matter.

He also decried the penchant to socially tag persons suffering from these illnesses as either being naturally difficult or having anger and, in extreme cases, spiritual problems.

In light of these developments, Professor Kasolo revealed that his outfit, WHO Ghana, is working out a comprehensive framework of partnership with the government of Ghana that will aim at reversing the deficiencies in the mental healthcare sector.

“People should understand that we can build capacities for people who we assume are difficult to access these services to understand why they’re behaving like that,” he said.

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Dr Kwame Frimpong says this is due to the burden of mixing running the church with challenges posed to them by their members.

The clinician, who practices in the USA, explained that the men of God play the role of psychologists and counsellors.

He revealed this on an episode of A Walk with Jesus with Pastor Ato Acquah on the ‘Christian and Mental Health’.

The discussion was based on a real-life story of a caller who phoned into Joy FM’s late afternoon programme, ‘Drive Time’, to talk about his decision to commit suicide due to a marital problem.

He said that the issue of mental health has become relevant, compelling some pastors to acquire knowledge in clinical psychology to put them in a good position to speak or help church members on such matters.

This he added, has made pastors become more interested in the subject of mental health.

The mental health clinician urged pastors to take good care of themselves and their souls.

“You can be spiritually powerful and mentally weak if you do not take care of yourself and your soul. Pastors will be overwhelmed if they do not take care of themselves”.

Although there is a growing and worrying inclination toward mental health disorders in churches, the clinician said, “Pastors must not turn themselves into counsellors or psychologists.

“They must employ clinical psychologists or professional counsellors to partner with them in their work”, Dr Frimpong advised.

“As typical Ghanaians, we associate every mental health disorder as spiritual and coming from the devil, and we become ineffective this way in our thinking to help our people. Some of these cases, however, could be demonic”, he said.

Dr Frimpong further recommended local churches get a psychologist or a professional counsellor on board with the church staff so they can partner with the church prayer warriors to work effectively.

He, however, revealed that some of the mental health disorders could be demonic, and others could be psychological.

Dr Frimpong also admonished churches to bring the subject of mental health back to the pulpit and educate its members, “if not, we will see so many things from the pulpit that will affect their performance and eventually cause them to burn out”, he warned.

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This was announced by veteran music producer Da’Hammer, who is soliciting funds for his medical care.

According to Da’Hammer, he received the news in a social media post demanding a call for action, accompanied by videos of Red Eye looking destitude.

Da’Hammer indicated he took up the task to find him, and he was located near a fishing harbour at Tema Newtown.

Red Eye was ambushed and sent to rehab centre at Achimota for medical care.

The music producer added that his situation is currently stable, kind courtesy a music studio inside the rehab centre.

He is, however, soliciting funds to contribute their quota to pay the bills of the artiste who once entertained Ghanaians with good music.

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