Govt to complete Pantang Hospital

She was accompanied by the caretaker Deputy Minister for Health, Mr Robert Joseph Mettle-Nunoo.

The visit was also to afford the minister an opportunity to visit two nurses who were at the weekend attacked by a patient on admission at the ward. She presented an undisclosed amount to the nurses, Ms Elizabeth Mensah, a Staff Nurse, and Ms Elizabeth Matti, a Health Assistant.

She also presented provisions and toiletries to the Children’s Ward of the hospital.

According to the minister, when the Pantang Hospital was fully completed, it would enable the hospital to give better care to patients and the APH would be used only as an Outpatient Department for all psychiatric cases and people who needed to be admitted would be sent to Pantang.

Ms Ayittey also promised that a Mental Health Board would be established for the Mental Health Act to be fulfilled.

The minister stressed the need to transform psychiatric health care in the country with the passage of the Mental Health Act, and added that  “we need more rehabilitation centres for the better management of patients in the country”.

The minister was taken round some of the facilities of the hospital including the Males Observation Ward, the Female Alkot Foundation Rehabilitation Ward and the Children’s ward, and said most psychiatric patients only needed to be placed in well-equipped rehabilitation facilities to facilitate their recovery.

She said it was part of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) party’s agenda to ensure that the Pantang Psychiatric Hospital was fully furnished to ensure quality care for psychiatric patients in the country.

Ms Ayittey called on people not to see their relations who had mental problems as outcast but rather such people needed compassion, love and care to help speed up their healing process.

She promised to help the hospital to get a new bus to facilitate the conveyance of reformed patients to their home towns to be reunited with their families.

A Psychiatric Doctor, Dr Adowa Pinaman Appau, on behalf of the Medical Director of the hospital, Dr Akwasi Osei, briefed the minister on some of the concerns of the hospital.

She stressed the need for mental health care staff to be well resourced as they faced a lot of hazards in the course of their work.

In a speech read on behalf Dr Osei, the medical director said the hospital was currently seriously indebted to the tune of GH¢3.2 million to food and chemical suppliers, compelling some of the suppliers to stop supplying them while some were considering initiating legal action against the hospital.

She added that the facility with over 1,000 inmates had only seven doctors, five medical assistants and about 250 nurses which was inadequate for the proper monitoring of the patients.

Story by Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho