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Experience from Ghana: Using the Diaspora Resources to Address Local Gaps and Build on Human Resource Capacity

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Innovations in Global Mental Health

Abstract

Mental healthcare in Ghana is government-funded and continues to be under-resourced, with only 2.3% of the total national health budget for 2009 allocated to mental health. Like in most other low- and middle-income countries, the recruitment of medical trainees into the psychiatrist workforce has been a challenge in Ghana, with recent figures suggesting there are only 0.07 psychiatrists per 100,000 people. As a result, several initiatives have been implemented to stimulate the interest of Ghanaian medical students’ in psychiatry as a subject as well as a future career option to help build the mental health workforce. This chapter highlights the impact of specific diaspora-based Ghanaian psychiatrists’ interventions, which targets closing the human resource gap for psychiatry and expanding access to mental healthcare in Ghana. It details a number of challenges that diaspora-based mental health professionals have faced when embarking on collaborative ventures with other professionals and institutions in the home country.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Community Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada

    Vincent I. O. Agyapong

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  1. Vincent I. O. Agyapong
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Correspondence to Vincent I. O. Agyapong .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, Center for Health, Culture and Society, George Washington University, Nashville, Washington, TN, USA

    Samuel O. Okpaku

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Agyapong, V.I.O. (2020). Experience from Ghana: Using the Diaspora Resources to Address Local Gaps and Build on Human Resource Capacity. In: Okpaku, S. (eds) Innovations in Global Mental Health. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70134-9_114-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70134-9_114-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-70134-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-70134-9

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