I was at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital when I chanced on a group of people dressed in white standing by two tables which were packed with food and drinks.
I was told that it was someone’s birthday. I thought I should just mind my business and move on but curiously again, I realised the group was moving towards a certain direction.
I followed keenly to see how things would turn out.
I witnessed one act that changed my way of seeing and doing things.
It was the 60th birthday of Mrs Augustina Engmann and on that special day her attention had not been on holding a plush party but on another family who even though had parents, lacked parental warmth and felt so rejected.
Mrs Engmann, together with her husband, family and friends, had decided to spend the day at the Children’s Ward of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital.
Emotional moment
I felt myself swelling with a mix of emotions as the little ones in the ward, sprung to life when they saw the company that had joined them.
It was an unmeasured explosion of joy, an injection of warmth accompanied by an uneasy spell of anticipation reminiscent of the expressions of children whose parents had returned from a journey after some weeks.
In that instant, I became one of the children. I felt like joining them. It was such a rare and moving moment.
As a symbolic gesture, Mrs Engmann decided to present a pack of cooked rice to one of the children.
The girl rushed and surged towards Mrs Engmann as the nurses tried to restrain her. Mrs Engmann asked them to let go of her as she stretched her hand with the pack to her.
Instantly, she reached out with the force of an adult but the innocence of a child and started eating the content feverishly.
Mrs Engmann’s singular but spectacular move has affected me in a sublime way and has shown me that there are people who have been rejected while the rest of the world moved on but more importantly, that there were others who still cared.
Later in an interaction, a senior staff of the ward, Miss Grace Agyei-Twum, told the Daily Graphic that the 16 children of the ward, made up of six females and 10 males were suffering from profound and severe retardation for which all the staff could do was to offer care and management.
Ward now a dumping ground
The ward, she said, had become a dumping ground for children with mental disability.
Normally, she said, parents would bring the children to the outpatient department (OPD) and then under the guise of buying something outside, they would abscond.
Miss Agyei-Twum said those who duly checked their wards in thereafter failed to answer calls placed to them and in some cases, issued threats to the staff of the ward who called them.
She said it was understandable that it is very difficult living with such children but all they are asking for is some level of parental support as that will go a long way to help the children have a sense of belongingness and also give them a glimpse of affection.
“But for now we are their parents. Some of the nurses here do not have children and so they relate to them like their younger brothers and sisters,” she said.
Social workers’ wahala
She also apportioned part of the blame to social workers for failing to do due diligence when they picked up the children in town.
The children, she explained, belonged to families and so when they were picked up, it was important that the social workers try investigating to trace their homes and parents before bringing them over for the necessary attention.
But for reasons best known to the social workers, they just come and dump the children at the ward and leave.
On one such occasion, she recounted, a young boy had been brought in and the social worker had said that the boy’s mother was a lunatic but it later turned out that the boy had gone missing and the mum was moving from place to place looking for him.
It was a visitor to the ward who identified the boy as missing and later helped in reuniting him with the mother.
Staff of the hospital expressed gratitude to churches, individuals and other corporate organisations that had come to the aid of the ward, especially Databank who at the end of every year organised parties for the ward and took the staff and children on field trips.
But the ward still needs mattresses, soaps, disinfectants, antiseptic lotions, television set and fans for the dormitories.
As I was leaving the ward, I saw a little boy holed up in a corner. He had his gaze fixed in the unknown distance probably thinking of what the future might bring.
Parting note
His mother, who had dumped him at the gate of the hospital, left a note saying she could not bear it any longer. I read the note and the bit that brought tears to my eyes was:
“My dear son, forgive me. You know all I am going through. I will pray for your health and my forgiveness from God. Goodbye.”
I exited the gate of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital with no clear sense of direction and headed into the open world of uncertainties. I will sure remember these children in my Christmas plans.
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