Health

The state of mental health care in Ghana is still a major challenge, especially at the Pantang Psychiatric Hospital. Pantang Hospital is one of the leading mental health facilities in Ghana. The hospital, however, is in a sorry state of disrepair. The buildings are dilapidated, the wards are overcrowded, and the facilities are inadequate. Patients are often forced to sleep ...

Former President John Dramani Mahama has called on the government to promptly scrap import charges and taxes on medication and kits for dialysis treatment in the country. This is in response to a recent increment in the cost of dialysis treatment by more than 100 percent at the Renal Dialysis Unit of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital. Speaking at an ...

Although COVID-19 may no longer be a global public health emergency, countries must still strengthen their response to the disease and prepare for future pandemics and other threats, the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday in Geneva. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was delivering his report to the 76th World Health Assembly, the UN agency’s decision-making body, which ...

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday launched a new initiative to help strengthen countries’ ability to plan for, and deal with, another deadly pandemic like COVID-19, as the latest figures show a huge fall in COVID deaths this year. The guidance provides a joined-up approach for responding to the threat or arrival of any respiratory pathogen such as flu or the ...

Zimbabwe’s Vice-President, Constantino Chiwenga, announced that the country intends to introduce a law that would make it illegal for other nations to recruit its health workers. The move aims to prevent the loss of valuable healthcare professionals to other countries, which has been a long-standing issue for Zimbabwe’s healthcare system. Mr Chiwenga, who is also the health minister, stated that ...

The Amanfro Community Support Network in the Ga South Municipality of the Greater-Accra Region has embarked on a walk to sensitize members of the public on the need to pay attention to their mental health. The Network is one of other Community Support Networks(CSN) established by MindFreedom Ghana in other parts of the country with the aim to bring persons ...

Implementing sodium reduction policies could save an estimated seven million lives globally by 2030, WHO said in a new report launched on Thursday. “Unhealthy diets are a leading cause of death and disease globally, and excessive sodium intake is one of the main culprits,” the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared. A first-of-its-kind WHO global report on sodium intake reduction shows that the ...

MindFreedom Ghana, one of Ghana’s foremost Mental Health Organizations has disbursed a total of GHC 19,000 ( US$ 1,583) to support six Community Support Networks (CSN) established under the project titled, ‘Provision of Covid-19 information and services for persons with mental health conditions and their caregivers’. The project, which spans April 2022 to March 2023, is being implemented by MindFreedom ...

There is a widespread shortage of some vaccines used for routine immunisation of babies from birth to at least 18 months. The situation has the potential to increase the vulnerability of children to the diseases the vaccines seek to protect them against. Under the routine vaccination programme, Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), a vaccine for tuberculosis (TB) disease; oral polio vaccine 0 ...

United Nations member countries have urged the Ghanaian government to address the shackling and inhumane treatment of people with mental health conditions in Ghana, Human Rights Watch said today. These recommendations were made on January 24, 2023, at the Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review of Ghana.“Ghana has failed to meet its own commitment to protecting the rights of people with psychosocial disabilities who are held in shackles ...