The Chief Executive Officer of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital, Dr Akwasi Osei has revealed that the management of the facility will discharge some 300 patients as part of its contingency plans to decongest the facility.
The Accra Psychiatric Hospital is faced with what authorities have described as a crisis situation which is forcing the management to ease pressure at the facility.
Speaking to Citi News, Dr. Osei revealed that management of the facility has therefore adopted some contingency measures to deal with the problem.
“We are liaising with the management so they can put in contingency measures for instance to collapse some of the wards the other thing we may have to do is to liaise with the minister of health to mobilise nurses from other hospitals. This is a crisis situation and then too we will discharge as many of the patients as we can. They currently have 430 patients. They will need to discharge about three hundred so they few that are left, they can take care of them”.
24 hours after the nurses embarked on the indefinite strike, Citi News visited the facility to find out how the patients are coping.
The patients in the various wards were under lock and nurses were not present in the over 23 wards in the facility.
Usually, there are nurses to feed the patients who are unable to feed and cater for themselves but the situation was not the same -dinner had been served but the food remained on the table.
Only the strong ones could afford to have dinner. Others also lay on the bare floor as there were no nurses to aid them in going about their activities.
President promises to resolve issue
But in an interview with the sunrise FM in Koforidua earlier today, the President explained that the current issues of the hospital had not come to his attention but was committed to resolving
“It hasn’t come to my attention but I do know that the area of mental is one of the areas we need focus our attention. We passed the new mental health bill and government is committed to its implementation. We will take immediate steps to resolve the issue at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital.
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By : Zoe Abu-Baidoo/citifmonline.com/Ghana