{"id":98479,"date":"2025-10-14T11:42:37","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T11:42:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=98479"},"modified":"2025-10-14T11:42:37","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T11:42:37","slug":"mandatory-mental-health-screening-crucial-to-prevent-mental-illnesses-mental-health-authority","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=98479","title":{"rendered":"Mandatory Mental health screening crucial to prevent mental illnesses \u2013 Mental Health Authority"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ghana has joined hundreds of countries to celebrate World Mental Health Day with an event dubbed \u201cThe Wholesome Mind Experience,\u201d held under the theme: \u201cPsychological Safety: Children and Adults, Catastrophes and Emergencies in Focus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mental health issues continue to receive limited attention in emergency response efforts. It is against this backdrop that the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Mental Health Authority (MHA), Dr Vivian Maame Aba Dadzie, speaking to JoyNews, stressed the need to incorporate mental health screening into the country\u2019s health response systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have realised that early detection is key. If we are not able to detect mental health issues earlier on, it can lead to people going into extreme forms of mental distress, and that is costly and expensive to treat,\u201d she indicated.<\/p>\n

The Director of Man-made Disasters at NADMO, Maxwell Emmanuel Ligbey, also identified gaps that continue to hinder effective mental health support during disasters.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause it is not very visible, you don\u2019t see the response to mental health on the burner. That is one gap, and so you don\u2019t get finances to it,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n

A representative of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Dr Joana Ansong, highlighted how many African countries still fail to integrate mental health into disaster preparedness and intervention plans.<\/p>\n

\u201cData shows that only 11 countries in the African subregion have mental health and psychosocial components as part of their national disaster preparedness, as the WHO framework mandates,\u201d she stated.<\/p>\n

As the world marks Mental Health Day, the MHA is reminding the public to care for their own well-being and to check on others. Sometimes, simply asking, \u201cHow are you coping?\u201d can open the door to timely support.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"MandatoryGhana joins hundreds of countries to celebrate mental health in an event dubbed, \u201cThe Wholesome Mind Experience,\u201d centered on the theme: \u201cPsychological Safety: Children and Adults, Catastrophes and Emergencies in Focus.\u201d<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6082,1883,10,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-mental-health","category-national","category-politics","category-popular"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=98479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98479\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=98479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=98479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=98479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}