Implementing the Mental Health Act in Ghana: any challenges ahead?

Ghana successfully passed a Mental Health Act law in March 2012. The passing of the Act was a culmination of a lot of work by various individuals and institutions spanning several decades. Finally there is a raised prospect of the delivery of a better quality mental healthcare and also the protection of human rights of people with mental disorders in Ghana. This paper identifies and describes clusters of related potential problems referred to as 'challenges' involving different aspects of service delivery, which are anticipated to be encountered during the implementation of the law. Finally, it cautions against the risk of allowing the new mental health law to add a new 'legal' burden to a list of perennial 'burdens' including underfunding, serious levels of understaffing and plummeting staff morale, which bisected earlier attempts at implementing a similar law that laid fallow for forty years.