We are shocked to learn of the conditions of mental health services in Ghana. According to  Human Rights Watch, Individuals with mental health issues undergo severe abuses in psychiatric institutions and spiritual healing centers, also known as prayer houses.

In a report titled “Like Death Sentence: Abuses against People with Mental Disabilities in Ghana”, Human Rights describes  the inhuman conditions of living that mental health consumers have to deal with at the psychiatric hospitals and prayer houses. These hospitals are overcrowded while human waste products and vectors littered the wards. Sanitary conditions  were equally as bad in those prayers houses. Also, mentally ill residents of prayer houses were bound in chain.

The video below is culled from a BBC report on the conditions of a mental hospital in Ghana. Please be warned that the images are graphic and can be disturbing.