Shortage of drugs at Accra Psychiatric Hospital
Serious shortage of drugs at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital is affecting efficient mental health delivery.
Chief Psychiatrist of the hospital Dr Kwasi Osei says if parliament fails to pass the mental health bill before the close of the year mental health delivery in Ghana will come to a halt as a result of logistical constraints.
The Accra Psychiatric hospital was established in 1904 to provide care to mental health patients. The hospital is responsible for the treatment, welfare, training and rehabilitation of the mentally ill. Cases handled at the hospital include neuro-psychotic issues, manic-depression illnesses, schizophrenias, epilepsy, and alcohol and drug abuse. The hospitals consist of the female, male and criminal wards.
Years of neglect, however, has reduced the hospital to a deplorable state. The Psychiatric hospital is currently holding nearly ten thousand inmates with only four hundred beds. The hospital relies on government subvention and funds which are released few and far between.
e.tv Ghana’s Naadi Bitlegma was granted an exclusive entrance into the hospital and found out that the exclusive male ward which keeps most of the aggressive inmates had on admission more than two hundred inmates.
He reports that their aggression is mostly due to shortage of drugs to stabilize them causing them to frequently attack the staff there.
A nurse at the hospital, Kweku Afriyie explains that the facilities in the ward are stretched beyond limit. As a result, the inmates want government to come to their aid.
Even so, Alkot Foundation has managed to ease the plight of female inmates by renovating their ward and upgrading it to modern standards.
The ward now has regular supply of water with proper protective facilities for staff. A lot more wards in the Psychiatric hospital needs serious attention. Until the mental health bill is passed into law, the fate of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital Hangs in the balance.
Naadi Bitlegma, e.tv Ghana
Finland, May 08, 2012
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