Some Nurses at the Ankaful Psychiatric Hospital in the Central Region have expressed concern about overcrowding at the female ward, regardless of the vulnerability, age or severity of the condition of the patients.
According to them, the management of the hospital is embarking on a renovation exercise, which made them proceed with plans to put all the female patients into one ward, despite advice from the nurses.
The move, which contravenes sections 64 and 65 of the Mental Health Act, 2012 has created a situation of ‘survival of the fittest’ at the ward, with the geriatric patients at risk. Geriatric patient has a certain profile of problems (like dementia, delirium, falls, etc) that the doctor is trained to focus upon.
“Quite frankly, the environment created in the female ward is not therapeutic and does not encourage the recovery of patients,” a mental health nurse, who pleaded anonymity, told the Ghana News Agency (GNA).
She added: “The 500-capacity-bed mental hospital was originally built to have three wards, each for male and female, with younger patients and geriatric patients in separate ward.”
The facility now has about 300 beds but the management have allegedly converted two of the female wards into special male ward, as a revenue-generating measure, which is at the peril of the inmates.
When the GNA visited the hospital on Monday, July 31, 2023 it observed that the female patients had only one ward, whilst the male patients have five wards.
On Thursday, March 30, this year, some 25 staff members of the Foster Ward, which accommodates female patients, petitioned the hospital management for a separate ward to admit patients “who are in an acute disturbing phase of a serious mental disorder.”
They also requested for a separate chronic female ward to meet the specific needs of adults 45 years and above, suffering from serious psychiatric issues, stating that “the environment of care, particularly at the Foster Ward, is poorly suited for elderly patients.”
After several months of sustained protest by staff, the nurses said the management had eventually responded with an ongoing renovation of a portion of the male geriatric ward, Volta Ward, to accommodate the elderly female patients.
This means that when the renovation is complete, the aged female patients will share the same ward with the older men, which the nurses believed could have terrible consequences.
If that is done, it will be in direct breach of Section 64 of the Mental Health Act which provides that: ‘female patients in a mental health facility shall have separate sleeping accommodation from male patients’.
“That is not done anywhere; not even in the general hospitals where people are sound, and this is a psychiatric hospital we are talking about. Some of the men are violent and it could lead to rape,” one of the nurses said.
“If somebody rapes or attacks somebody’s mother, will the nurses be held responsible?” they questioned.
The nurses explained that three wards; Nightingale, Aggrey and Simew were originally for the female patients, whilst Foster, Sangmuah and Volta belonged to the men.
But the management in 2018 swapped the inmates of Nightingale and Foster wards and later moved the inmates from Aggrey to join those in Foster, and then converted Aggrey into a VIP male ward.
In November 2022, the management under the immediate past Director, Dr Kwadwo Obeng, proceeded to further convert the Simew Ward into a male Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) and moved the elderly women to join the other patients at Foster.
There were four patients at the 24-bed capacity Simew Ward at the time of the GNA’s visit.
“Because patients brought here are violent and destructive, it is not safe for them and the nurses here, because they can run away and using the barbed wire is very dangerous,” one of the nurses at the ward lamented.
“In fact, the place is completely underutilised and not serving its purpose because it was meant to accommodate 24 patients. But there are only four people here,” he added.
At the Nightingale ward, where new male patients under observation are detained and treated, there were 16 patients and 30 beds.
Dr Enoch Donkor, the new Director of the facility told the GNA that the nurses had not engaged him on their concerns since he took office and urged them to do so immediately.
“If the management of the hospital fails, then they can go to the Mental Health Authority and other higher bodies for redress,” he said.
Reacting to their concerns, however, Dr Donkor rejected the claim that the female patients were living in conditions not therapeutic.
He insisted that mixing up the patients had not really affected their recoveries, maintaining that their ages did not really matter, but the severity of their conditions.
Despite that, he admitted that it was ideal to have separate wards for the women, based on various characteristics, but the hospital lacked the financial wherewithal and adequate staff strength.
“We have some structures here which we are not using. We can renovate them and move the patients in, but there is no money for that. The Hospital is faced with countless challenges and we need a lot of money to address them,” he said.
On the issue of renovating the male geriatric ward to accommodate elderly women patients, Mr Thomas Chere Kuusanoo, the Head of Administration, dismissed the claim and said it was for dementia and other special cases.
That notwithstanding, he indicated that it was not an aberration to have males and females in the same ward in many hospitals in Ghana.
From Prince Acquah, Ankaful
GNA
