Starting next month, mentally challenged patients strolling on  the streets of Accra will be removed, according to the Ghana Mental Health Authority.

The programme dubbed “operation, clear the street and unchain mental health patients” will be carried out by the Ghana Mental Health Authority in partnership with other institutions.

Dr Akwasi Osei, Acting Chief Executive of the Mental Health Authority, told Joy News as the Mental Health Law comes into effect, policemen, Accra Metropolitan Assembly staff,  and Social Welfare staff will be deployed to arrest mental health patients on the loose.

According to him, the mental patients "are on the streets for various reasons. Some of them actually run away from the psychiatric hospital, some of them also run away from the prayer camps and traditional healers. The greater majority may have run away from their own homes," because their relatives do not take care of them.  

A total of about ten patients will be targeted a month and they will be put in Psychiatric hospitals "give them intensive care and within one [or] two months they will be well," Dr Akwesi Osei said.

He revealed that they have managed to reduce their patients load from 1,200 to "only 485 courtesy the operation repatriation"- the operation under stable patients were sent back to their families.

Dr Akwesi Osei disclosed that a tracking system will be put in place to ensure former patients do not relapse.