Implement Mental Health Levy to ensure effective service delivery – Prof. Akwasi Osei

The immediate past Chief Executive Officer of the Mental Health Authority, Professor Akwasi Osei, has called on parliament and the government to implement the Mental Health Levy as a matter of urgency.

According to him, the levy is what will provide the financial backing to enable the authority to carry out its mandate of effectively treating mental illnesses.

He said the authority has already put in place all the policy documents together while they wait on the government and parliament to pass the policy into law, which will give them the financial backing to be able to live up to their mandate with all the ease needed to do so.

“We have all the policies put in place; we have the Mental Health Law of 2012, Act 846; it spells out the processes; we have a mental health policy that also goes down further to show how this can be taken on board,” Prof. Osei said.

He said until the government and parliament implement the Mental Health Law, which will provide the authority with funding, the authority cannot live out its mandate as expected.

“Given the financial resources, for instance, if we talk about the Mental Health Levy, until the levy is implemented, we will always be handicapped financially, and so, as we are saying, we are urging the government and parliament to establish the Mental Health Levy so we will have enough funding to implement the Mental Health Policy, and then all these affronts shall become a thing of the past,” he added.

Professor Osei also advised Ghanaians, especially the youth who take in cannabis for recreational purposes, to desist from such substances since they can lead to mental illness.

He predicted that in the next five years, if care is not taken, a lot of Ghanaians are going to suffer mental illness as a result of the misconception around the recent approval parliament gave for the commercial cultivation of cannabis for medicinal and industrial use, arguing that farmers may grow recreational cannabis that can be used by human beings along with the kind that is for medicinal and industrial use.

Prof. Osei disclosed this to the media on Thursday, October 19, 2023, in Accra during the press launch of the “Joint UPR Shadow Report on Mental Health and Human Rights”.

On his part, the Executive Secretary of Mindfreedom Ghana, who is the organiser of the programme, Dan Taylor, said the association was established in August 2004 as a non-profit organisation with the core mandate to work with and support people with psychosocial disabilities.