Official – Ghana’s mental health professionals are insane! via @grahamk5

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Ghana’s chief psychiatrist, Dr Akwesi Osei, has made the startling announcement that his own psychiatric doctors, responsible for the mental health of the nation, are themselves suffering from mental disorders! He has not stated whether he has included himself in this diagnosis.

Did he know these doctors were mad when they were employed, or have they become disordered under his administration? It is certainly a serious state of affairs especially for those who need treatment!

For those that may not know the background, there is currently civil unrest amongst many workers in Ghana over issues with salaries. Doctors are striking because of longstanding, unresolved pay disputes with the government.

Doctors additional allowances for all their extra hours were merged with their salaries onto a single spine salary structure (ssss) – the 3^rd salary structure doctors have been moved onto. The merging of salaries with allowances has resulted in less pay which has in turn affected pensions. Despite what the government promised, they unilaterally changed the deal in contravention of the Labour Act 2003. Let’s not forget government ministers have increased their own salaries and receive endless allowances!

Teachers have also been battling with salary discrepancies since 2010!

It spite of these clear injustices, Dr Osei has stated to the media that all labour disturbances are a sign of mental disorder, which includes his own striking doctors!

It was not so long ago that women were categorised as suffering from hysteria if they showed resistance to patriarchy.

“Doctors had observed that hysterical women were resistant to or critical of marriage, and were believed to be strangely independent and assertive. While hysterical girls were viewed as closet feminists and rejecting traditional roles, likewise feminist activists were denigrated as hysterics, sick and abnormal women who did not represent their sex. By the 1880s, it had become common in England for the term ‘hysterical’ to be linked to feminist protests in newspapers and in the rhetoric of anti-suffragists.” – Paul Turnball

Does being healthy mean ‘shut up and put up’ and accept the status quo? Are workers supposed to accept the injustices of capitalism and to be labelled mentally disordered if they show resistance? Rather I would suggest it is a sign of a healthy person to resist injustice.

Dr Osei has also claimed that LGBT people suffer from mental disorders and therefore

Frank Ocean

should not qualify for human rights.

Even if we wish to accept his lone voice (standing in contradiction to international medical opinion) that LGBT people suffer from a mental disorder, is he now suggesting that all people with mental disorders should be denied human rights? Perhaps this attitude may account for the appalling treatment of many mentally ill people in Ghana as shown in Africa Review and the photoblog of  Nyani Quarmyne.

Human Rights Watch has described the situation in Ghana as “appalling” and that:

“In psychiatric hospitals, people with mental disabilities face overcrowding and unsanitary conditions.”

When people make personal assertions, especially those which contradict scientific and medical research, we should demand evidence. Like all scientific research it should be peer reviewed and assessed. Personal opinions, particularly from those in positions of power, should remain personal or stated as such. When personal opinions appear to support elite interests, the position of neutrality we expect from doctors can appear compromised.

Ghana’s health professionals are doing a great job in caring for people. Mental health is still facing stigmatisation and cultural and religious misunderstandings. Our doctors need support from the state not penalisation and name calling. There is much education and work to be done.

By Graham Knight

Corruption

there’s always a back door!!!

OPEN SPACES AND PUBLIC ART

Open spaces are very important network for a wide range of human activities. The way these spaces are managed has profound influence on the manner in which the public uses them. If the space is left unattended, the public encroaches on it with all types of indecent structures. On the other hand, if the general aesthetic mood of the open space in question is properly enhanced, a stimulating creative atmosphere is thus established therefore preventing the public from desecrating that space.
One important consideration, ignored more often than not, when it comes to landscape planning for our open spaces, is public sculpture. Dynamic public sculpture is virtually non-existent in our Ghanaian environment. Dynamic public sculpture in this context neither refers to the several sculptural renditions of mother and child that dot certain open spaces in Accra nor the seemingly deformed sculptural portrait of Busia at Akuafo roundabout, not to talk of the horrific and embarrassing busts of six unidentifiable individuals at the Kotoka Airport interchange. What is being brought up for scrutiny, is the advocacy to install elegant monumental sculptural works of art of symbolic richness at selected open spaces, that should stimulate the aesthetic sensibilities of the viewing public.
Works of art in various forms from time immemorial have played an indispensable role in landscape design all the world over. These works do not only complement architectural structures and open spaces, but, also provide the appropriate cultural touch, identity, character and in more general sense, humanize buildings as well as add value to the aesthetic environment of public parks.
The importance and lack of public parks for recreational purposes in this country has never been properly addressed over the years. Parks and gardens feature prominently in many cities of the world. Paris, which stands out as one of the best among equals, is reputed to have more than four hundred parks and gardens strewn with spectacular sculptures and water fountains. The city ranks as the most beautiful and romantic and also as one of the most preferred tourist destinations in Western Europe.
How else could this have been achieved if not as a result of a conscious and deliberate effort to create these places of recreation, by investing money and the expertise of artists, architects, landscapers, florists and visionaries for things that are beautiful.
In recent times, it is heartening to know that certain locations in Accra for example are being given some attention as far as recreational parks are concerned, e.g. the Nationalism Park at Independence Square.
If art is to play its full role in the building and maintenance of a free and aspiring Ghanaian society, then we all must encourage and allow for the creative environment to exist and to grow.
For the tourism industry to receive further lease of life, we must recognize among other equally important considerations that our environment is most crucial in this bid and deserves to be given the kind of artistic packaging which should add value to its dimensions.
Perhaps the most important contribution Africa has made to the world of Art of the 20th Century is her powerful sculptures that can be found in almost all the important museums in the world. Most of these take the form of traditional wood carvings and metal figurines, which in themselves have other cultural meanings, than the purpose of appealing to human aesthetic sensibilities. These works of art have all attributes that elicit the highest reaction and reflection, which have inspired artists and international art movements such as Cubism.
One would have thought that for that reason, there would have been an abounding presence of African Sculpture in one form or another in our open public spaces and city squares as complements to our architectural edifices. Unfortunately, these are consigned to curio shops considered fit only for the export market.
There is a need to recreate and transpose our varying traditional African art forms into dynamic and monumental sculptural statements as a way of projecting our cultural, nonetheless, our national identity within a well planned green environment. Monumental groups of sculptures based on our traditional concepts of Akuaba Doll, Linguist Staff, Mamprusi Masks, the ceremonial Gong, bold Geometric designs of Navrongo, Adinkra symbols etc. fashioned in durable materials like stainless steel, brass, copper, cast bronze, cast aluminium, or cast fibreglass.
This would preserve the icons of our past in monumental sculptural forms and help project our cultural identity within our Ghanaian environment. The significance of these symbols of identity to numerous visitors to Ghana cannot be over emphasized.
It is one important way of projecting Kwame Nkrumah’s ideal of cultural identity (the African personality) as well as branding and selling Ghana to the outside world. To achieve this goal, it will need some amount of official support both morally and financially. Adequate financial support comprises the most crucial and important determinant for its realization.

Written by Kwami Gudzi Agbeko
Opinion Ed, Daily Graphic, Saturday May 5, 2012.