Mental cases have increased at an alarming rate in the Bolgatanga District of the Upper East Region. As at the end of December last year, the Psychiatric Department registered 112 cases while 96 new cases were recorded at the first quarter of this year. This was disclosed at a three-day workshop organised by the Community Psychiatric Unit of the Bolgatanga Hospital for 25 sub-district staff aimed at improving on their skills to be able to detect signs and symptoms of mental illnesses. Opening the workshop, the Bolgatanga District Director of Health Services, Dr William Duodu, said in view of the high psychiatric and epyleptic cases in the district, and in the region as a whole, health workers need to know the behavioural symptoms associated with mental illness. He said apart from genetics, so many factors including malnutrition at birth, and social circumstances during life could lead to mental illness, and that such patients need early treatment to prevent them getting worse. Dr Duodu hoped the workshop would equip the health workers with the necessary skills to enable them give better services to their patients. The co-ordinator of the workshop, Mr John Agyuick said participants would be taken through the identification of simple behavioural signs and symptoms, and the management of mentally ill patients during the three- day session. He said the psychiatric unit has proposed in an action plan the training of two persons each from all the sub-districts to manage various aspects of mental illness.
