Dignitaries on tour at the Serenity Place
The Accra Psychiatric Hospital has inaugurated a new facility, the Serenity Place, aimed at offering rehabilitation services for patients suffering from addiction.
The dedicated facility, located outside the wards, was funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) through the Mental Health Authority (MHA).
Speaking at the inauguration of the facility, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the MHA, Dr. Akwesi Osei, said a separate ward for treating addiction is appropriate in effectively dealing with the disease many people suffer from.
“Formerly, the situation was that we were treating patients within the general ward and so their treatment had not been very different from the other case,” he explained.
Dr. Osei further stated that addiction, which is a chronic or a long-standing disease of the brain, tends to relapse and affect behaviour of those who suffer from, and this needs to be handled separately from mental illness.
“Addiction is not a crime… it is not a moral weakness, but it is a disease and so it is not enough to advice. The person needs to be treated,” he stressed.
The Director of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital, Dr. Pinaman Apau, indicated that “for the past three years, the hospital has received 5, 849 cases of substance abuse which formed five per cent of the total cases seen at the OPD and out of this 78 per cent falls within the 20-49 years age group”.
She said last year alone, out of the 1,182 substance use disorders the facility saw, 135 cases were admitted, constituting 7.1 per cent.
According to her, the statistics give rise to the necessity to create a place which would facilitate the drive to address substance use disorders which were reported to her outfit comprehensively.
“The Serenity Place is a 24-bed facility with 19 trained staff to provide services such as detoxification, group and individual counselling, family counselling and therapy, vocational skills assessment, and training, after-care services and psychotherapy,” she added.