Govt approves GH¢1 million for Accra Psychiatric Hospital
The government has approved the release of GH¢1 million to the Accra Psychiatric Hospital (APH) towards the provision of quality health care for the patients.
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The Ministry of Finance is currently working on the necessary processes for the release of the funds.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health (MoH) has already released a cheque for GH¢300,000 and provided assorted medications valued at GH¢153,000 for the hospital.
In an interview with the Daily Graphic in Accra, the Public Relations Officer of the MoH, Mr Tony Goodman, said although the full amount was yet to be released by the Ministry of Finance, his outfit found it necessary to source funds to prefinance the hospital as an interim measure.
Appreciation
The Head of Communications at the APH, Mr Kwaku A. Brobbey, who confirmed the receipt of the money from the MoH, expressed appreciation to the government for responding to their pleas.
He, however, indicated that the medical supplies and the money could only sustain the hospital for some few weeks, adding that mental health care in Ghana was supposed to be free.
“As it stands now, the hospital needs lots of funds, as well as medications, to ensure the safety of the nurses working here,” he added.
Mr Brobbey urged the government to pay more attention to the needs of the hospital to forestall any future challenges.
Background
For some weeks now nurses at the hospital had laid down their tools to press home their demand for what they described as unfair treatment by the government.
The action was necessitated by a myriad of issues, including inadequate supply of medicines, the absence of an insurance policy to cover the bills of staff who got injured in the line of duty, risk allowance for nurses, lack of basic logistics and potential attacks by the mental patients.
Managers of the hospital last week began discharging patients from the facility as they struggled to take care of them.
