Community Mental Health Volunteers and relevant Duty Bearers (Mental Health Officer and Officers of Department of Social Development) in the Twifo Atti-morkwa, Ajumako/Enyan/ Essiam and Abura/ Asebu/ Kwamankese Districts of the Central Region of Ghana have been trained to use short messaging services (SMS) on their mobile phones to report and respond to issues affecting people with mental illness and epilepsy.

The training was organized by the Human Rights Advocacy Centre (HRAC), MindFreedom Ghana (MFGh), and BasicNeeds Ghana as part of activities of the “Promoting quality access to mental health care and rights of persons with mental disabilities in traditional mental health centers in Ghana” Project.

The two and half year project is supported by STAR-Ghana under its Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) Call with funding from the UKAid, DANIDA and the European Union (EU). The overall objective of the project is to advocate for the improvement of mental health care services and treatment in traditional mental health centers and ensure equitable access to psycho-social support and human rights protection of persons with mental disabilities.

It is estimated that over 2.8 million persons live with mental disabilities in Ghana, 650,000 of whom suffer severe forms of mental illness (Human Rights Watch, 2012). However, as of 2011, there were only 12 psychiatrists and 600 psychiatric nurses in the country presenting a ratio of 0.07 specialists per 100,000 populations. Given that there is one psychiatrist per 1.5 million people in the whole country, and that the three major psychiatric hospitals are under-financed, congested and under-staffed, many people and/or their relations resort to the more ever-present, easily accessible and more affordable, traditional and/or faith-based healing options (Fournier, 2011).

More problematic and deep rooted is the social perception that mental illness is largely caused by ‘evil spirits’. Therefore, a ‘spiritual’ remedy must be sought for the treatment of the mental health condition. Sadly, these traditional mental health centers are unregulated in their operations and neither certified to provide minimum standards of treatment for mental illness.

Participants at the training were sensitized on minimum standards and conditions that must prevail in Traditional Mental Homes/Centres (TMHC) in line with the Mental Health Authority Guidelines for Traditional and Faith-based Centres in Mental Healthcare as well as existing channels of reporting on how to address challenges that arise in relation to their regular visits to the TMHCs.

Based on these learning, participants were taken through the relevance of information sharing, core principles and ethics of reporting, as well as some tit bits of mobile phone security to facilitate an effective process of using their mobile phones to report cases.

Participants can now anonymously report cases of anomalies and abuse of the rights of persons with mental disabilities identified during their regular visits to the TMHCs through text messaging – sent directly to the mobile phones of Mental Health Officers or Officers of the Department of Social Development for redress.

In attendance were representatives of Human Rights Advocacy Centre (HRAC), MindFreedom Ghana (MFGh), BasicNeeds Ghana and STAR-Ghana.