WE'VE NEGLECTED MENTAL HEALTH — CHIEF BANDANA (PAGE 19, OCT 23, 2010)

THE President of the Ghana Medical Assistants Association (GMAA), Chief Imoro Bandana, has described mental health as the most neglected area of the health care system.
Chief Bandana said entities in the health delivery system had not shown any enthusiasm in mental health and that professionals in the system had the propensity to shun that speciality for various reasons including unattractive service conditions as well as stigma.
Speaking at the opening session of the 8th annual general meeting of the GMAA, Chief Bandana said as health professionals were calling on the public to desist from stigmatising mental illness, health assistants should themselves preach the concept of destigmatisation of mental health in terms of policy directives, interest, practice and political will.
The meeting is on the theme: “Mental health in the primary healthcare setting — The role of the medical assistant”.
He stressed the need to make the speciality more attractive to health professionals while policy directives should be made more friendly to the development of psychiatry.
He said while there were plans to turn most post-basic programmes in allied health fields into degree programmes, not much was heard about the intended degree programme for the medical assistant.
According to Chief Bandana, even the psychiatry programme for medical assistants which was initially intended as a degree programme had also not materialised.
He called for a regulatory body to prescribe standard of practice, training and professional development criteria for the group.
He further called for a downward review of the all-inclusive tariffs to ensure effective health care delivery in the rural areas.
The Deputy Director of the Central Regional Ghana Health Service, Nana Owusu Boampong, said without medical assistants, most rural communities would have been denied health services and that the mental health bill when passed would address the problem of mental health and issues affecting medical assistants.
The Human Resource Manager of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Appiah-Denkyira, said the Ghana Health Service was working out plans to assist medical assistants to offer quality health services to the people.
The Central Regional Minister, Mrs Ama Benyiwa-Doe, in a speech read on her behalf by Mr Patrick Aniagyei, an Aide at the Central Regional Co-ordinating Council, called for concerted efforts to curb mental health challenges in the system.
The Chief Psychiatrist, Dr Akwasi Osei, said psychiatry should be integrated into the general hospitals to enable medical assistants to handle simple mental cases.