Ghana psychiatric hospital faces shutdown over financial constraints

Ghana's foremost psychiatric facility in the national capital faces closure due to logistical and financial constraints.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Mental Health Board, Dr Akwasi Osei, said on Wednesday the hospital was not receiving its budgetary allocation so the nurses could not work in the current condition.

The Accra Psychiatric Hospital has been riddled with financial difficulties for many years. Last Monday, nurses at the hospital declared an indefinite strike over dangerous working environments.

They said, as a result of the shortage of essential medications required for psychiatric management, most patients had relapsed, with many of them demonstrating serious aggressive behaviors towards staff and other patients.

Also in September, the hospital shut down its Out Patients Department (OPD) due to financial challenges.

"The patients are either beating us or they are beating other patients. That is the situation now," said Jamilatu Hussein, leader of the psychiatric nurses.

Some of the wards have been closed down as a result of the situation.

Last Tuesday, managers of the hospital began discharging some 300 patients from the facility as they had struggled to take care of them.

Authorities said they took the drastic decision after nurses at the facility decided to stay away from work until government provided them with basic supplies.

But relatives of the patients have kicked against the decision, saying the government was demonstrating gross insensitivity over the plight of the mental health patients and nurses.

Osei said the facility's decision to discharge patients was a "contingency measure" as there were no nurses to attend to them.

President John Dramani Mahama has said he is committed to resolving the crisis at the facility.

"We will take immediate steps to resolve the issue at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital," he said in an interview on a local radio station. Endit