Accra Psychiatric Hospital: Mental examination suspects have been abandoned for 30 years

Health News Thursday, April 18, 2019

Source: Starrfm.com.gh

2019-04-18

Information gathered in the corridors of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital indicate that a number of suspects who were referred for mental examination during their trial for various offenses were dropped at the same time. hospital for years, some of them having been there for more than 30 years.

Asked about the number of suspects who suffered such a fate, Francisca Ntow, head of public relations at the hospital, told DAILY HERITAGE: "We would not be able to give you a precise figure, but we are a many patients. .

What is worrying is the fact that the prosecutors who are in charge of these patients do not come back to look for them, even after the hospital has communicated to them after the results of their examination of the suspects.

"After evaluating the suspects, a letter is sent to them so that they can pick up these patients on the basis of the results; that they have the right to be prosecuted or possibly during the period when they committed the crime, they disagreed or even pretended.

"But unfortunately, this is not what happened. You write to them and it takes them forever to pick up their patients. Sometimes, when you follow up, you do not get the attorney; he could have been transferred or probably died.

"… It's interesting that no one is taking charge of the case, but we think it should be ongoing. Thus, a prosecutor's case will no longer be, that does not mean that the case must simply be left. So that's why we have these patients here.

The PRO then announced that the hospital management had decided that it would no longer accept people returned to court for psychological examination unless the prisons or prosecutors were willing to do them. to leave the prisons.

Nurses turn guard

She told the paper that some of the suspects who had been brought in for badessment "made their way out of this hospital and escaped because the facilities we have are not safe enough to keep such patients".

Ms. Ntow said, "By our law, we should have security guards here as elsewhere to arrest such patients when they hurt other people; When you go to Korle-Bu, you sometimes see police officers or other general hospitals, police officers who manage these patients, but that's not what's happening here.

"It's our own nurses who are actually the security officers and it's not the best. Management has therefore decided to stop admitting such patients. What we are doing now is that these patients are taken from the prisons and escorted by their agents. After their badessment, they return to the prisons.

Suspects left to rot for 30 years

The PRO told the paper that even though the hospital management gave the order, about two years ago, to discharge these patients, relatives do not want their patients because of the stigma. So we have people over 30 years old. in this hospital. "

"We can not send them back to go because the problem is that when we send them back, they end up in the street and even those we hand over to their loved ones, they end up in the street, how much more do those who do not go to the streets, have no relatives. "

Ms. Ntow said the hospital management would be pleased to receive any help from the government or the private sector that could help overcome some of the constraints so that the hospital can better serve its patients.