July 11, 2017
The Pantang Psychiatric Hospital health workers strike enters its second day today as the workers have disregarded pleas from the Mental Health Authority to call off the strike.
Yesterday, the workers refused to attend to patients as they begun a sit-down strike to protest the rampant encroachment of the hospital’s land, a situation they say has put both patients and workers at risk.
They turned down a plea by the Chief Executive Officer of the Mental Health Authority, Dr. Akwasi Osei, who visited the hospital yesterday, demanding that a concrete action was undertake by the government about their concerns.
They have threatened that the sit-down strike will aggravate into a full strike action which will have the workers hit the streets if the government failed to address their concerns by Wednesday.
The fate of patients at the second mental health facility for Greater Accra hangs in the balance, as hundreds of patients who visited the facility for treatment yesterday morning, were turned away.
Elvis Akuamoah, Head of Senior Staff told the journalists after the meeting with Dr. Osei that “there was a loud ‘NO’ to the appeal from the CEO of the Mental Health Authority.”
“We represent people and if they are saying ‘No we won’t budge,’ then the action stays,” he added.
The Pantang Psychiatric Hospital was the second of such facility built by the Government in 1975 after the Accra Psychiatric Hospital.
The hospital is situated near a village called Pantang, about 1.6 kilometres off the Accra-Aburi road and 25 kilometres from Accra Central.The hospital was originally planned to be a Pan-African Mental Health Village.
By : Nii Adotey/adrdaily.com
