Government has been urged to consider including mental health service in the Prenatal and Postnatal care of women to ensure their physical and mental wellbeing.
It would also give players in the health sector accurate data on maternal mental health cases among pregnant and lactating women.
In an interview with Radio Ghana at Wa in the Upper West Region, the Project Coordinator for the Centre for People’s Empowerment and Rights Initiative (CPRI) Dominic Wunigura expressed worry about the seeming apathy of the health sector towards the psychological wellbeing of pregnant and lactating women.
“When a woman is pregnant, during her first visit to the hospital for registration, their urinary test is taken, an HIV test is done, a malaria test is done but these are all related to their physical conditions.
What we are saying is just like these physical test that are being done, it should be a government policy to be part of the routine work of midwives to determine which pregnant women or breastfeeding mother requires a certain mental health service,” he explained
Mr. Wunigura said it is unfortunate that Ghana has no national policy or data on maternal health cases among women and therefore have no way of addressing the problem.
“In the country as it stands, there is no health policy that ensures that consciously women who visit antenatal centres or breastfeeding mothers who go for their postnatal services are checked to see if they are mentally sound,” he said.
The Project Coordinator CPRI however cautioned the public against the stigmatization of women with some sort of mental disorders. He said if the practice continues, more women will shy away from receiving the help they need.
Mr. Wunigura called on government to help partner CPRI in their bid to help address maternal mental health disorders among women in the Upper West Region.
The Centre for People’s Empowerment and Rights Initiative is undertaking a 3 year project aimed at ‘Enhancing the Maternal Mental Health of 29,520 Pregnant Women, Mothers and their Children to realize Maternal and Child Health in Ghana.’
The programme which begun about 6 months ago has seen the setting up of self-help groups in 5 districts in the Upper West Region. The self-help groups are to bring pregnant and lactating women with some sort of mental health disorder together for counseling and guidance.
CPRI is also set to train community health volunteers, community health nurses, traditional birth assistants and midwives on how to identify pregnant and lactating women with mental disorders. The Project is funded by UKAID Direct through BasicNeeds UK and BasicNeeds Ghana.
Story by Mark Smith
