GHC 300k released for Accra Psychiatric Hospital

Government has released some much-needed funds to the Accra Psychiatric Hospital, Minster of Health Alex Segbefia has disclosed.

According to him, an amount of GHC 300,000 had been made available to be given to the hospital immediately with more to be made available.

“We gave a cheque of 300,000 and drugs worth over 100, 000 and well as some food”, he disclosed.

The release of the funds comes after President John Mahama promised in an interview on Koforidua-based Sunrise FM on Tuesday to resolve the financial constraint situation of Ghana’s premier mental health facility.

The president’s promise was in reaction to a strike action embarked on by nurses of the hospital over the lack of logistics and the unsafe work environment caused by the financial challenges facing the facility.

While admitting that mental health in the country required some more attention from government, President Mahama stated that he was not aware the only mental hospital in Accra has issues with finance and medical supplies and promised “we will take immediate steps to resolve the issue at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital and I am going to call the Minister of Health after this programme to see what the issues are and how we will resolve them”.

The nurses had on Monday, October 31, declared an indefinite strike saying “there is a massive shortage of basic logistics needed to carry out our professional duties such as gloves, spirit, dressing solutions, face masks, plastic, sterile, cotton and gauze, detergents among others”.

Speaking in an interview on Citi FM on Tuesday, he admitted that though they have already made some disbursements the ministry might have made a mistake by disbursing funds to hospitals on a basis of equal share because the Accra Psychiatric Hospital was bigger.

He explained that, “we’ve had a very tight budget throughout the year but we’ve been able to spread funding. The Accra Psychiatric hospital is bigger than the others and should probably have received more”.

“We are not going to make any excuses, funding should have been secured earlier and I take the concerns of the staff and apologise to them for the conditions they are working under”, he added.