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The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, has called for the government to make sure that mental health is made an urgent national priority.

      He said mental health could not continue to be relegated to the background as had been done over the years amid the rising cases of mental disorder.

      The Asantehene made the call in a speech read for him at the 59th annual conference of the Ghana Medical Association, underway in Kumasi.

       “Mental health in Ghana” is the theme chosen for the four-day meeting.

      Otumfuo Osei Tutu asked that the government did everything to provide the Mental Health Authority with adequate financial and logistical support to effectively discharge its mandate.

      He added that mental health laws and related legislations should be made to work to address mental health problems facing the nation.

      The King used the occasion to highlight the need to move quickly to implement the agreed conditions of service for medical doctors.

      That, he said, was important to save the nation from another “debilitating strike action”, something he indicated, Ghanaians were not prepared for.

      The Asantehene touched on the general working conditions of doctors including the facilities where they had been working and said things should be improved to motivate them to give it their all.