Most students of Archbishop Porter Girls SHS gone home

Takoradi, Feb. 12, GNA - Most students of Archbishop Porter Girls Senior High School have gone home after some students had diarrhoea and stomach pain.

When the Ghana News Agency visited the school at Fijai on Friday, only a handful of students were on campus undertaking various chores and some were preparing to go home

Some of the students interviewed said they did not take their supper the previous day because of fears that they might have stomach problems. Ms Louisa Constance Aggrey, the Headmistress, said some parents and guardians decided to take their children home for a while after meeting authorities of the school, the Ghana Health Service, members of the school's Board, Diocesan Bishop and the Vicar General of the Catholic Church because of the scare caused by media reports about the scale of the incident. She said, "Parents and Guardians did the right thing in taking their children and wards home because of the wrong impression that the situation was alarming. Although there was a problem, it was not as bad as it was portrayed".

Ms Aggrey said 15 students are still on admission at the Effia-Nkwanta Regional Hospital and the Essikado Hospital.

She said members of the Board, the Diocesan Bishop and Vicar General and health personnel ate with some of the students in the dinning hall to disabuse their minds that food served at the school were contaminated. She said students were not willing to eat in the dinning hall although all foodstuffs stored there had been thrown away and fresh ones bought. Ms Aggrey said the school had not experienced such an incident since it was established 45 years ago and expressed the hope that the students would be back on campus by Sunday for academic work to begin the following day. Ms Aggrey said the school's dinning hall is too small for the student population of 989 and students use the hall on shift basis because of this. She said a new and bigger dinning hall is under construction and is expected to be completed by September. 12 Feb 10