Nearly three million Ghanaians report mental health challenges to hospitals annually, representing roughly one in every ten individuals across the country.
That is the revelation from sociologists at the University of Cape Coast, who are calling for an immediate shift in how society perceives and handles mental wellness.
Speaking on ATL FM’s Issues Segment, Professor William Boateng from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology explained that deep-seated social stigma frequently forces families to hide affected relatives or seek spiritual interventions rather than clinical care.
He said how we define a problem dictates how we choose to solve it.
“When you look at it and see that mental ailment is a normal ailment, just like any other form of ailment, if you perceive it from that angle, it’s likely that your first point of call will be the conventional hospital. So that you’ll be clinically diagnosed,” he continued.
Prof. Boateng emphasized that there are trained experts, such as psychiatrists and psychiatric nurses, who can clinically diagnose individuals and provide the proper medical treatment.
Meanwhile, he acknowledged that while national frameworks have improved significantly over the last decade, major structural gaps remain in the country’s mental health delivery system.
‘We are doing quite okay, except we can do better, right? There’s always room for improvement. Since 2012, when the Mental Health Act came into effect, numerous changes have occurred. Now, mental health services are all over the place, and it’s good, but there is still a gap to be filled.”
On his part, Dr. Daniel Ampem Darko-Asumadu, also of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, noted that structural changes must be accompanied by a cultural shift in how different genders process emotional distress.
He warns that while women are traditionally more expressive and likely to seek help, Ghanaian men often suffer in silence due to societal pressures.
He said that it is a dangerous trend that frequently ends in tragedy.
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