The delay in the promulgation of a Legislative Instrument to ensure the implementation of the Disability Act will have far reaching consequences for the nation, if immediate steps are not taken to salvage the situation.
This is the advice coming from the Executive Director of the Alternative Action for Youth and Persons with Disability Nicodemus NBD Dery who believes that’ll be Ghana’s lot if nothing concrete is done to put mental health in its rightful place.
Speaking to EIB’s Upper West Regional Correspondent on Tuesday in Wa, Mr. Dery said until stakeholders get society to appreciate what mental disorders are all about, nothing will change.
He said, “until we get society to appreciate what mental disorders are all about, we will continue to go through the rhetoric of celebrating mental health day and passing laws without any meaningful change.”
Mr NBD Dery questioned why the Legislative Instrument has not been promulgated yet saying,” we passed the mental health act in 2012 and today it is over five years yet we don’t even have an appropriate space for the authority to use as offices and we don’t even know the funding sources for the authority”.
On the repercussions of not doing enough to give meaning to mental health campaign, Mr. Dery intimated that,” the major thing we must be looking at now is not who has degenerated now but the statistics and the rate of degeneration vis-a-vis the availability of facilities to cater for persons with mental conditions. If we don’t sit up as a people, ten years from now this country will be lawless and will be run by degenerates”.
