Psychiatric hospitals turn away new patients

All the three major psychiatric hospitals in the country are turning away new patients, XYZ news can confirm.

The Pantang and Ankaful psychiatric hospitals have totally stopped admitting new patients due to lack of funds while the Accra psychiatric hospital, which is also facing similar challenge is admitting only emergency cases.

The three hospitals say they do not have money to cater for admitted patients. Chief Psychiatrist Dr Akwasi Osei told XYZ News on Saturday March 30, 2013 that the Health Ministry has not fulfilled promises to release funds to the three hospitals.

He said the situation is frustrating.

“We are seriously broke; all the three hospitals…we don’t really have the money to attend to them and it will be wrong on our part to admit them and [not] have enough money to feed them three times a day so that’s our current situation,” Dr Akwesi Osei said. He said the Health Ministry is aware of the plights of the three psychiatric hospitals but has not lived up to its promise of providing funds.

“We’ve discussed it with the ministry…they promised to release funds but as of now, we’ve not had it yet,” he lamented.

Dr Akwasi Osei said their food suppliers have also stopped providing them with needed supplies due to debt owed by the hospitals for earlier food supplied to them on credit which runs into millions of cedis.