The Ministry of Health has said it is taking measures to address the concerns raised by the nurses at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital.
“We have just inaugurated a board….some of the concerns we raised are lack of drugs for aggressive patients and the others are managerial issues that the hospital itself has to deal with,”Mr. Tony Goodman, the Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Health said.
Nurses at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital on Tuesday embarked on a demonstration to express their displeasure over the unavailability of drugs and some basic working equipment.
But speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show, Mr. Goodman said the Ministry was unable to supply drugs to the Hospital due to some challenges with the procurement process.
“What really happened was that we went through the procurement process but the directive that came is that you need to quote whatever transaction that is being undertaken in Ghana cedis and not in dollars and that affected our process.
“They maintained to quote the drugs in dollars so we are trying to talk to the Ministry of Finance to wave that off so that we can go ahead and procure the drugs,” he explained.
Speaking about the 300 casual workers who had not yet received their allowances from the Ministry, Mr. Goodman said the list presented to the Ministry had increased from 300 to 6,000, adding that some of the names were ghost names.
He therefore stated that the hospitals should be prepared to pay the allowances of the extra number of casual workers saying “if you have a hospital and you think you can have a contract with anybody pay the person from your coffers, don’t come to the Ministry and say they should seek clearance from us.”
By: Marian Efe Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana