NGO supports Ankaful Psychiatric Hospital

Care Generation African Foundation (CGAF), a Ghana- based Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) has donated assorted food items valued at GH¢5, 000 to the Ankaful Psychiatric Hospital to support the upkeep of inmates.

The items included bags of rice, gari, sugar, gallons of cooking oil, toiletries, beverages, biscuits and slightly used clothes.

Mr. Joseph Wellington Baah, Chairman of CGAF, who made the donation, said it was in line with the NGO’s objectives of supporting education and health care delivery, which had its prime focus on the Ankaful psychiatric hospital because it was the under privileged among the three Psychiatric hospitals in the country.

He said the NGO, has for the past seven years been supporting the hospital, with this year’s donation being made at the sidelines of the Cape Coast Fetu Afahye celebration to enable the inmates to enjoy the festival.

Mr Baah indicated the NGO was collaborating with other stakeholders to expand the facility as well as help find solutions to other challenges faced by the hospital and therefore called on other NGOs to get on board.

“There is a thin line between sanity and insanity so mental health care should be everyone’s concern”, he appealed.

Aside health care, he said the NGO had also helped basic schools in Ajumako Bisease in the Central Region by paying their Basic Education Certificate Examination (B.E.C.E) Mock examination fees as well as other incentives and motivational packages to teachers to adequately prepare the students for the main exams.

Ms. Grace Forson, Principal Nursing Officer of the Hospital, who received the items expressed gratitude to the NGO for their continual benevolence and asked for God’s blessing for them to sustain the gesture.

She appealed to other NGO’s to come to the aid of the hospital since funds and medical supplies from Central Government was erratic and had resulted in the discharge of patients whose conditions is said to be better.

She said the hospital in recent times had about 300 patients but have discharged them all leaving only 90.

Ms. Forson said due to lack of drugs, some of the remaining patients and others who have been discharged would have to buy their own drugs, which cost between GH¢20 and GH¢30 per month, and that, quite a number of them had relapsed due to the inability of their families to buy the drugs.

She said though the hospital was doing its best by operating the Out Patient Department (OPD) to raise revenue to support the inmates, it was not enough.

Ms Forson expressed gratitude to the various Non-Governmental Organisations, Churches and private individuals who support the hospital and appealed for more support, especially consumables and also adopt some of their wards.

The Ankaful Psychiatric Hospital was founded in June, 1965 by the late Dr. Kwame Nkrumah with a 500 bed facility. The hospital now serves the Central, Western and Ashanti Regions but received patients from all over the country with some from neighbouring countries.