The Accra Psychiatric Hospital, the nation’s leading mental health facility has in the past year recorded as many as 590 drug related cases. This showed an increase over the 525 cases recorded in the previous year. The ages of the patients ranged from 16 to 60 years.

A bio-statistician at the hospital, Mr Samuel Ashrifie, told The Mirror in an interview that though statistics for the first quarter of this year is not ready, there is an indication that more people are using substances that are harmful to their mental health.

Drugs commonly abused include cannabis, popularly known as “wee”, cocaine, heroine, pethidine, alcohol and tobacco. Whereas some drug addicts use one substance over a period of time, others abuse a combination of two or more. According to Mr Ashrifie, out of the 525 patients admitted in the year 2000, 502 were males while 23 being females. The gender distribution for last year was not readily available.

He said the unemployed constitute the majority of cases, numbering 371 out of the 2000 figure of 525. Others were 24 civil servants, 48 artisans, 20 traders, three fishermen, four law enforcement agents and nine students. The rest included 12 labourers, 26 farmers, one pensioner, and one physician.

Last year, out of the 590 drug-related mental patients who reported at the hospital, 45 were students as against the nine recorded in 2000. The number of artisans also shot up from 48 to 71. The trend was the same for traders who presented 34 cases, 14 more than the previous year. There was however, a drop in the number of cases involving civil servants, farmers, law enforcement agents and the unemployed in the year 2001.

Mr Ashrifie said the Accra hospital, which was built to house about 500 patients now accommodates more than twice the number and that is affecting work at the hospital. The hospital has 24 wards-15 for males and 9 for females. He said total admissions for the year 2000 was 3,670. This increased to 3,851 in 2001.

The bio-statistician mentioned the top ten psychiatric cases presented at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital as schizophrenia, depression, acute organic psychosis, substance abuse, schizo affected disorders and undifferentiated psychosis. Others are bipolar affective disorder, epilepsy, alcoholism and dementia, which usually affect very old people. He said the drug problem is far from being solved and parents should monitor their wards closely to keep them off drugs.

“Unfortunately some young students in the junior secondary schools are on drugs, probably due to peer pressure and everything must be done for them to appreciate the harmful affects of their habits”, he said. He pointed out that the problem of drug abuse cuts across the entire society and expressed regret that some elderly people who should help fight the menace have themselves been caught up in the web.