One in four people will require mental health care at some point in their lives but in many countries only two per cent of all health sector resources are invested in mental health services, according to the World Health Organisation's Mental Health Atlas 2011, released on the eve of the World Mental Health Day, celebrated worldwide on 10 October. 'Average global spending on mental health is still less than US$3 per capita per year,' said the Atlas, adding that 'In low income countries, expenditure can be as little as US$0.25 per person per year.'

There is enormous discrimination against people who live with Albinism in Ghana. Perception about the condition has assumed a superstitious twist, with suggestions sufferers don’t die, that they vanish. But why this level of discrimination against people who are only different from others because of pigment? In Tanzania, and many other African countries, they are killed for rituals and those in Ghana are scared these unwarranted attacks could soon occur here.

Many patients have resorted to private clinics and pharmacies after struggling to get service at both government health facilities and those run by the Christian Health Association of Lesotho (CHAL), an organisation made up of six different churches that provides 40 per cent of health care in the country. Thabo* was forced to go to a private doctor after failing to get drugs or a medical examination at government or CHAL health centres in Maseru. 'I went to the government clinic because I was going to pay only 15 maloti (US$2.14) but now I have to cough up 120 ($17.14),' he said.