By Alexander Nyarko Yeboah, GNA
Accra Dec. 28, GNA - Trust Jesus Foundation has feted the inmates of the Pantang Hospital who are normally abandoned by family and society even during Christmas.
“This gesture is an attempt to give relief to people with mental health issues believing that this effort would lead them back to Christ,” says the President of the foundation.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at the Pantang Hospital, near Accra, Mrs. Mary Wormenor Quaicoe, indicated that people with mental health issues “are somehow neglected by their family and as a result of that they feel very lonely, therefore we want them to feel special and to know that there are people out there who love them no matter their condition.”
Mrs. Quaicoe informed that mental health was crucial and therefore the need for all stakeholders “to come together to make sure that we promote it because people did not really know what mental health was all about.”
“But we are saying that it is important that you think mental health because it could be you, it could be me, therefore we shouldn’t leave it for the government; we must come together to promote mental health,” she stressed.
Mrs. Quaicoe indicated that by doing this they were saying that God was love and He expected mankind to demonstrate that love to one another which would make the sick trust in Him.
She said the foundation would visit residential communities to educate members on mental health.
In lamenting how the subject of mental health was relegated to the background, Mrs. Quaicoe said, “The gap is wide and we must come together and bridge it. Little is said about mental illness so the time has come for us to talk about it so that we can learn more.”
She therefore called on Parliament to pass the Mental Health bill to promote mental health and improve the lives of Ghanaians.
She bemoaned the stigmstizatiion of mental health patients saying, “We shouldn’t stigmatize them, we should accept them when they come back into the community.”
A lecturer at Valley View University, Mr. Evans Osafo Frimpong, informed that mental health was something everybody should be worried about because the brain controlled all activities of the body, “so if you are not mentally sound, generally you are not sound, so for us to have complete wellness it means mentally we have to be sound.”
Mr. Frimpong, in an earlier lecture at the forecourt of the hospital without the inmates, said to have a sound mind, one had to manage relationships very well, accept oneself, manage stress, prevent head injuries, and avoid alcohol and controlled substances.
He informed that one also needed to have enough rest and open up about challenging issues.
“One should eat a lot of fruits and vegetables and avoid food that disturbs the heart because it is the heart that pumps blood to the brain and therefore failure to work would affect the brain.”
GNA
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