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03.12.2008 Health

GOFAS adopts Children's Ward of Accra Psychiatric Hospital

03.12.2008 LISTEN
By Masahudu Ankiilu Kumateh - Ghanaian Chronicle

The maiden Ghana Organisation on Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (GOFAS), a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), has adopted the Children's Ward of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital in the Greater Accra Region.

The ward is currently accommodating about 17 children, with some of them being orphans, destitute and epileptic.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GOFAS, Mrs. Amanorbea Opoku-Boakye, disclosed this when the organisation donated items, which included toiletries, detergents and confectioneries and cutleries worth GH¢1,500, to the hospital.

She indicated that the donation formed part of the organisation's social responsibility, to ensure that the under-privileged, like the Children's Ward, did not feel excluded from the society.

“We are going to provide food and drugs for the children regularly, to make them feel at home even more than their various homes they belong to,” Mrs. Opoku-Boakye added.

She announced that GOFAS would in future expand the ward, to enable the children live in better conditions, and also plan activities for them to exert their energies on, to enhance proper blood circulation.

She disclosed that the NGO was founded last year, with a passion to discourage women of childbearing ages from drinking alcohol during pregnancy.

The organisation also fights against mental and physical defects caused by pre-natal alcohol consumption.

Mrs. Opoku-Boakye further disclosed that most of the children in the wards, were suffering from alcohol syndrome, and advised women to desist from the excessive intake of alcohol during pregnancies.

Receiving the donation, a Superintendent and Enrolled Nurse of the Children's Ward, Madam Helen Doh, thanked the organisation for coming to their aid.

According to her, this would go a long way to improve the lives of the children, and called on more NGOs, corporate and other benevolent organisations, to extend their hands to the hospital.

The Acting Chief Psychiatrist at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital, Dr. Akwesi Osei, commended the organisation for adopting the children's ward, adding this would further ease the level of burden on the hospital.

He indicated that the hospital had put out a Special School for children, to enable them be at par with their able-bodied colleagues in the area of education, while special care was also given to those who were suffering preventable diseases, notably epileptics.

Dr. Osei used the opportunity to appeal to all those who brought their children to the hospital for treatment and ran away after treatment, to come for their children. Later, members of GOFAS, together with students of the Narh-Bita Nursing Training College at Tema, embarked on an intensive clean-up exercise in the Children's Ward, and some parts of the hospital.

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