President Aware Of Psychiatric Problems – Minister

Deputy Minister of Health, Dr Victor Bampoe, has justified President John Mahama's statement that he was unaware of the strike by the Accra psychiatric nurses group over lack of logistics to run the health facility.

Dr Bampoe, answering queries from the media regarding the situation at the psychiatric hospital and the president's utterance about the nurses' strike, indicated that Mr Mahama answered a specific question on the strike and not on the situation at the health facility.

“I think if you go back to the interview, the question was specific and the answer was specific. He was asked about the strike,” he said.

The deputy minister observed that President Mahama was fully aware of the poor situation at the psychiatric hospital, inferring from the additional information the president gave when answering the question on the strike.

“Then, he went on to talk about the challenges in that sector in particular, how can someone who is not aware of the challenges in the sector talk about it? So he clearly demonstrated that he was aware of the situation,” he told journalists.

The president, speaking on Sunrise FM in Koforidua at the close of his Eastern regional campaign tour on Tuesday, said the strike had not come to his attention, even though the strike was in day two after nurses at the facility had rejected fresh patients for more than one week owing to poor funding lack of consumables.

“We will take immediate steps to resolve the issue at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital and I am going to call the minister of health after this programme to see what the issues are and see how we will resolve them,” he told his listeners.

Dr Bampoe, however, disclosed that “that is not surprising given that he was out in the field campaigning and the strike was declared when he was in the field.”

“The president has put a minister and deputy minister in place and we are supposed to fix this, so it is not the president who is supposed to be doing this so when it comes to the psychiatric nurses we will tell you what we are doing at the right time,” he added.

He, however, declined commenting on how the Health Ministry is planning to resolve the crisis at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital, saying, “I do not want to speak specifically on the mental health issue at the appropriate time we will address that.”

President Mahama, this Tuesday, said he was unaware of the strike action being embarked on by the nurses of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital during a radio interview in the Eastern Region.

“No it has not come to my attention, but I do know that the area of mental health is one of the areas that we need to focus attention. We passed the Mental Health Bill and government is committed to its implementation,” President Mahama told Sunrise FM.

“We will take immediate steps to resolve the issue at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital and I am going to call the minister of health after this programme to see what the issues are and see how we will resolve them,” he declared.

Meanwhile, doctors at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital are finalising examination of patients to be discharged in a few days as a result of the nurses' strike.

“Today, we have examined quite a number of inmates and they will be discharged soon, we are also not taking emergency cases because without the nurses we cannot treat them,” one of the doctors on duty said.

By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri