Confusion over who is responsible for mad persons

Koforidua, Jan. 24, GNA - Investigations by the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in the Koforidua Municipality has indicated there is an increasing public concern about the sudden increase of mad people in the area.

Some traders and people in the Municipality whom the GNA spoke to, complained about occasional harassments they suffered in the hands of lunatics in the streets.

According to the traders, sometimes the mad men entered the market area and interrupt their business activities.

The traders said some of their customers often ran away in fear on seeing the mad persons approaching. This situation, they claimed, was ruining their business.

Other people interviewed by the GNA claimed that they had to avoid the pedestrian lanes and walk on the roads to steer clear of the mad persons some of whom slept on the pedestrian lanes.

There also seems to be some confusion over which institution or department is responsible for the many mad persons roaming the streets of the Municipality.

The Regional Director for the Department of Social Welfare Mr G.A. Danquah, explained that his office had made efforts to trace the relatives of the mad persons, after other departments had arrested them, in order to get them to show some sense of responsibility towards their relations who had become mentally ill.

He said firstly the mad persons on the streets ought to be rounded up by the Police on the directives of the Municipal Assembly, and then sent to the psychiatric hospital.

However, the Municipal Coordinating Director, Mr Samuel Donkor said the Assembly did not have any official stand on the issue and that, it had not been clearly stated whose responsibility it was to cater for the mad people in the municipality.

He further explained that the Assembly had no budget allocated for the mad persons because when they were rounded up, they would have to be confined, fed, treated and transported to the psychiatric hospital.