No cash for psychiatric hospitals; inmates to starve
Psychiatric hospitals in the country have run out of funds needed for their operations following a delay in the release of statutory funds by the government, Dr Akwasi Osei, a chief psychiatrist has said.
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There are three psychiatric hospitals - Accra, Ankarful and Pantang and according to Dr Osei, they were all going through hardships and that if government does not provide funding in the next few days, the state of the facilities will go from bad to worse.
He maintained they were going through difficulties with regards to “chop money” and even though they have been assured the funds were on the way, for as long as they don’t have it, things were difficult for them.
Speaking to Accra based Peace FM Wednesday morning; Dr Osei said three days ago, managers of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital for instance had no choice but to take monies from the drug fund to procure food for the inmates even though it was against the law.
He said they were currently indebted to their suppliers to the tune of GhȻ3million and as a result, they have refused to further provide them with food supplies on credit.
Dr Osei complained about the situation where funds are always not released on time and said even when they were released, they were always not sufficient.
He said they don’t have any drugs as of now but there was information that some drugs have arrived in the country and were at the Tema port, Food and Drugs Board (FDB) was reviewing them before it would be supplied.
Mental health in Ghana is not covered by the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) but it is free for patients and government bears the cost.
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With the passage of the Mental health Act and the subsequent formation of the Mental Health Board, the board has set up the Mental Health Fund. The fund, which is to provide the needed financial assistance to the psychiatric hospitals is however yet to start working because the necessary Legislative Instrument (L.I.) which will support the Act and specify how monies would go into the fund was yet to be instituted.
Listen to Dr Osei is this conversation with Kwame Sefa Kayi of Peace FM
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