Management of the Pantang Psychiatric Hospital in collaboration with a Non-Governmental Organization, Forever True Friends Foundation has launched the refurbishment of the Pantang Hospital Theatre.
According to both parties, the state of the theatre interferes with the normal operations of the hospital.
They added that the hospital sometimes loses its patients due to the unavailability of certain equipment needed to for an operation.
The President of the NGO, Jane Gerps, said “we visit Pantang Hospital often. We then realize that the hospital theatre was not in the best shape”.
She recounted a scenario where a mother lost her life because the hospital could not provide her with the necessary attention because they did not have the needed equipment.
“A pregnant woman was admitted at the hospital I once visited. For more than three hours, the lady was not attended to. Apparently, she was transferred from the Pantang Hospital because they didn’t have the equipment for treatment. Unfortunately, the delay on the part of the hospital cost the lady her life”.
“A Psychiatric hospital needs not only medicine, food, or clothing but they need the theatre of the hospital to work”.
Chairman of the foundation, Cudjoe Awuni, also lamented that psychiatric hospitals, have over the period been neglected.
“Mental Health is a neglected area in healthcare in Ghana. With few clinicians and trained researchers in the field, research has been limited in both quantity and quality. Psychiatry in Ghana is neglected in healthcare and Research”.
“The administration block with a concrete roof has countless cracks and often leaking during the rains; walls of overwhelming majority of buildings appear not to have seen paint since the facility was constructed over four decades ago.”
Stressing on the need for this project, the Chairman of the NGO added that “the hospital lacks timely government subventions which call for massive support from society and corporate entities to guarantee its existence and full services to all mentally ill patients”.
The NGO announced that over $300,000 dollars is needed for the reconstruction and renovating of the hospital theatre.