Who cares for children of mentally-ill mothers?

As I watched the other mad woman closer to a gutter, also fetched water from the gutter and gave to her baby to drink after she had sipped some of the dirty water.

When I decided to explore the streets of Bolgatanga in the night to see how these lunatic women kept their babies on the streets and away from mosquitoes in the usually cold harmattan weather, I saw as many as 10 mentally ill women with their babies trying to find sleeping places at an abandoned kiosks and some on the bare floor at the Bolgatanga main lorry park at about 10 p.m.

The above scenario is very common in many parts of the country and it seems society is doing nothing to support these unfortunate babies who are born by these lunatics through no fault of theirs.

The question that keeps bordering my mind is who is responsible for the upkeep of these innocent babies? What is the government, including non-governmental organisations and the society in general, doing to save the lives of these innocent children born by these lunatic women?

One cannot escape the fact that if taken good care of and assisted to have access to education, the victims could become our future leaders such as Presidents, Vice-Presidents, doctors, lawyers, teachers, nurses among other professionals.

In this country, one of such homes taking care of mentally ill persons is ”God’s Love Orphanage Ministry” located at Bolgatanga–Soe in the Bolgatanga Municipality of the Upper East Region

The God’s Love Orphanage Ministry has devoted itself since the 1990s to take good care of mentally challenged children and children separated from their mentally ill mothers.

Fortunately, I was invited to cover a visit to the orphanage by the Upper East Deputy Caretaker Minister Mrs Lucy Awuni just when I decided one Sunday to go there.

The orphanage currently has 27 inmates who are children from mentally challenged mothers. The facility is manned by the Director, Mr Felix Akampoi and his wife Mary–Amana Akampoi and some staff.

Narrating how the orphanage started, the director indicated that he and his wife were usually informed by the public about such children and that before they could pick up such children, they would have to do some investigations about the mother and later inform their relatives about the intention to separate the children from such mothers.

He stated that the health conditions of the mentally challenged children were not the best and that in many instances, they were made to drink water from gutters and food that had been thrown into dust bins, stressing that “This is very dangerous to these innocent victims.   

The director underscored the need for the government and other stakeholders, particularly non-governmental organisations to find effective means of catering for mentally challenged women who have given birth to children.

Mrs Mary–Amana Akampoi indicated that the problem was becoming rampant in the three northern regions and said so far, there were no traces of mental illness on the children that were being given formative growth in the centre and blamed the problem of madness associated with women to the social backgrounds of some families.

The caretaker deputy minister commended the director and his wife and the entire staff of the home for their philanthropic spirit and appealed to other organisations particularly, NGOs and benevolent individuals to support the home.

Mrs Awuni interacted with the inmates and gave them toiletries, biscuits and fruit drinks.

Meanwhile, some of the children in the home were babies between two to 11 months old who were being fed with baby foods. There were other grown-ups ranging from one to 18. Among the grown-ups were a 13-year-old primary six girl and another,an 18-year-old girl in one of the second cycle schools in the Upper East Region.

Article by Samuel Adadi Akapule

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