A member of the public relations team of the Accra psychiatric hospital Francisca Ntow on March 28, 2019 in an interview disclosed that lack of support from government and stakeholders has led to the high charges on mental cure in the various psychiatric hospitals in Ghana.
To her this prevents people from taking mentally affected persons to the hospitals but rather leave them to the streets and other places.
“Not only the cost of treatment but because government and other stakeholders are not interested in mental illness, the hospitals have to always buy and sell the medications to those who brings their patients for treatment which mostly cost a lot” Francisca said.
She also disclosed some of the challenges the hospital is facing by saying, “though we lack infrastructures and financial difficulties but what we have now a days been seeing is lack of relative’s support where families come and dump their patients here and never visit them again”.
Speaking to a nurse in charge of the female geneotric ward two Miss Jemimah, she also laid down some of the difficulties they go through as psychiatric nurses by saying, “stigmatization has been the societal problem to us and it does not ends with the patients but we the nurses as well, you tell someone you are a nurse at the psychiatric hospital and is like you are the one receiving treatment”.
She added mental issue is very close to us as human and according to the world health organization every 1/5 persons you select will suffer mental issue and every ¼ have either mental issue and will advise the public to stop those attitudes besides there is a thin line between normality and abnormality.
According to the member of the PR team Francisca, they are still putting measures in place to educate the public on mental issues so as to eradicate those societal problems they have been encountered such as stigmatization, discrimination, unfair treatment of family members to mentally affected persons and others as well as to encourage them to accept mentally affected persons who are treated and discharged when they come back to them in their society.
Accra psychiatric hospital is one of the Ghana’s biggest mental health hospital which has been abandon for decades by every government who comes to power. If not other stakeholders support, they would have been left with old facilities, over aged roofing’s, leak walls and others which they are currently facing.
0 Comments