Scores of patients seeking for critical mental healthcare and observation at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital have been turned away by hospital management as a result of government’s failure to provide funds for the running of the facility.
Thus, for the past week, patients supposed to be admitted are only treated at the out-patient department (OPD) and sent home to be cared for by relations.
According to the management of the hospital, the health facility has been forced to close its doors to new admissions because of its GH¢4.2m indebtedness to its suppliers.
Since the beginning of the year, government through the Ministry of Health has failed to release the hospital’s subvention, leaving the health facility with no choice but to operate on credit and public benevolence.
“In July, our suppliers of items such as food, gloves, pampers, detergents, stationary, bulbs and gas for the kitchen wrote to us that they cannot supply us anymore because we have not paid them since January this year,” Emmanuel Febiri, Communications Director for the hospital, said.
He disclosed that the hospital since then has been running on donations from the public to care for the about 500 admitted patients at the health facility whose care costs GH¢10 per patient daily.
“It has been challenging to manage the patients in terms of feeding them, buying detergents and even money to pay casual workers. As it stands now, there’s no money, there’s no food for the patients,” he added.
Assurance
The Minister of Health, Alex Segbefia, last Thursday visited the facility to ascertain the effect of the decision by the hospital’s management.
After going through the wards and interacting with the health officers, Mr Segbefia gave the assurance that he would facilitate the payment of the hospital subvention as soon as possible so they can go back to normal operations.
However, Mr Febiri said the management of the hospital was yet to receive a notification of a transfer of money into the hospital’s account.
He said the hospital will be unable to admit new patients until the fund which was not specified by the health minister is transferred into their account.
Strike
The Accra Psychiatric Hospital has been riddled with financial difficulties for many years.
The hospital had previously threatened to either halt admissions to the facility or let patients bear feeding costs.
In 2015, the hospital increased its service charges in an effort to meet the high cost of patient care.
In the same year, nurses at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital also embarked on an indefinite strike over unpaid salaries.
The strike followed what the nurses described as deceit and failure on the part of government to fulfill promises to pay them.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri