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Government urged to incorporate maternal mental health into general health policies and programmes

Government has been urged to incorporate maternal mental health into general health policies and programmes to ensure pregnant women and mothers are screened properly for mental healthcare services.

According to the Programmes Coordinator, for the Centre for People Empowerment and Right Initiative (CPRI), a Non-Governmental organisation, Dominic Wunigura, issues of maternal mental health should be considered and pregnant women should be screened of mental health just like other health conditions such as HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.

Dominic Wunigura, said “We have come to realise that when we tackle mental health from the angle of maternal issues, pregnant women and mothers of children below the ages of two years, we will be able to prevent a lot of mental health issues”.

CPRI is implementing a project dubbed: “Enhancing maternal mental health of pregnant women, mothers and children in Ghana,” which he said was to among other things, train health service providers directly working with pregnant women and mothers of children under two years.

He said about 190 health service providers covering midwives, community health nurses and enrolled nurses would benefit from the project which was on Pre-natal Adapted Screening Tool (PAST).

CPRI launched the project in 2018 in partnership with BasicNeeds, UK with financial support from UKAID and has since engaged major stakeholders in the health sector including; traditional birth attendants and community volunteers.

He called for increased awareness creation on maternal mental health and conscious efforts to support those women since treatment of mental illness went hand-in-hand with other psycho-social and environmental factors.

He also entreated the public to embrace the initiative, saying screening one of mental health did not mean the person was mentally ill, but a way to avert preventable mental health cases.

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