Ketu South Municipal Health Directorate Embarks On Mental Health/Brain Awareness Campaign

The Ketu South Municipal Health Directorate is organizing a week long sensitization campaign on mental health and brain awareness. The campaign which is to start from the 31st of October and end on the 4th of November is on the theme:

Promoting Good Mental Health In Ketu South Municipality: Key To Increasing Productivity

Ketu South Municipal director of heath services, Joseph Kwami Degley in an interaction with voltatoday.com ahead of the programme, stated that the awareness campaign was aimed at encouraging people to be concerned about their mental health issues in order to enhance productivity in all spheres of endeavor.

The campaign he says also aims at reducing discrimination and stigmatization against people living with various forms of mental illness as well as encouraging people to cultivate healthy habits to improve their brain health so as to help prevent mental illness at the various levels with the education of the youth to stay away from hard drugs.

He further revealed that the health directorate was partnering with On The Move eV, a German non governmental organization (NGO) to rehabilitate mental health clients who are on medication and to reintegrate them into society by creating job opportunities for them.

To this end Joseph Kwami Degley intimated that the health directorate has received a donation of 146 bicycles from On The Move eV which have all been given out to some mental health clients after they have successfully undergone training in bicycle assembling and repairs and are currently making a meaningful living for themselves by selling those bikes.

The health director is hopeful that his outfit would receive more of such support from the donors to continue to support our brothers and sisters who have found themselves with one mental health illness or the other. He therefore called on the families of people with mental health problems to help in the campaign to reduce the stigmatization and discrimination against them.

He also used the opportunity to appeal to the Ghana Revenue Authority, Customs Division to consider waiving the taxes on imported health materials and other items to enable NGO's that work hand in hand with the health directorate in other to deliver its public health effectively because the huge taxes levied on such health materials is deterring local and foreign NGOs from supporting efforts aimed at sustainable and effective health delivery in the country.