Addressing the essential healthcare requirements of incarcerated individuals has long been a top concern.
Inmates often struggle to access regular check-ups, only seeking medical attention when their health deteriorates.
It is given this that the United Service To Africa (USTA) has offered free health screening to inmates of Kumasi Central Prison.
In addition to the screenings, the inmates received a variety of items, including reading glasses, clothing, and toiletries.
“So, this year, for the whole week, we’ve been screening at schools, but my boss says he wants to do the screening on Saturday. On Saturday, we are mostly Adventists-we are volunteers, so we said, we usually go to Church, so we let’s bring the team here to the prisons and worship with them. Then we are going to do an eye screening. We are going to give them reading glasses for those who need prescription glasses too. We are also going to do dental screening. For those that need filling, cleaning, or extraction, we will do that for them. We also want to give some donations in terms of clothing, and toiletries and also to have a meal with them. This is not going to be a nine-day wonder. Probably, we are going to do more from now on,” the President of United Service To Africa (USTAG),” Dr. Kwame Boateng stated.
Assistant Director of Prisons, James Mwinyelle, second in command at Kumasi Central Prison, emphasized the importance of diverse stakeholders’ support in assisting prison inmates.
“The health needs of the inmates is an issue that is of concern surely to the government and surely to the service as a whole. Right from the director general in Accra down to us here. So this donation and this health screening that they would be doing, quite encompassing, quite embracing will go a long way because some of the inmates who are here, some don’t get visits at all. They came here and for some parents and relatives, it’s like good riddance. Mind you, they will all come out of the prisons one day. No one will be in the prison forever. So this donation will go a long way to help the health needs of these inmates.”
Dr. Kwame Boateng Agyemang, President of United Service To Africa (USTAG), also highlighted their ongoing efforts to address the diverse healthcare needs of Ghanaians.
“We’ve been coming here (Ghana) since 2019. Whenever we come, we do mostly surgical missions. We do general surgery cases like hernia, glaucoma, and plastic surgery cases. We also do cataract surgeries. We also do medical screening- hypertension, diabetes, and all that. We do eye screening where we give out reading glasses. So far, when it comes to cataract surgeries, we’ve been able to do about five thousand free cataract surgeries. We’ve done many surgery cases. Even just recently, we’ve done about 150 general surgery cases like hernia, glaucoma, and others at Techiman. We are going to continue with the cataract surgeries. We hope to do two thousand-one thousand with Ghana Adventist Health Services and then also one thousand with Ghana Health Services. Over the years, we’ve been working with Ghana Adventist health services, so we work at their hospitals.”