Nurses at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital have called off their strike effective today, Monday November 7.
The Nurses, however, maintain that they will not provide Out Patient Department (OPD) services due to a nationwide strike by the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association.
The decision to call off the strike comes after GH¢1 million was approved by government to help mitigate the crisis at that facility.
The Head of Communications at the hospital Mr. Kwaku A. Brobbey, who confirmed the receipt of the money from the MoH, expressed appreciation to the government for responding to their pleas.
He, however, indicated that the medical supplies and the money could only sustain the hospital for some few weeks, adding that mental health care in Ghana was supposed to be free.
He urged the government to pay more attention to the needs of the hospital to forestall any future challenges.
Background
For some weeks now nurses at the hospital had laid down their tools to press home their demand for what they described as unfair treatment by the government.
The action was necessitated by a myriad of issues, including inadequate supply of medicines, the absence of an insurance policy to cover the bills of staff who got injured in the line of duty, risk allowance for nurses, lack of basic logistics and potential attacks by the mental patients.
Managers of the hospital last week began discharging patients from the facility as they struggled to take care of them.
Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com/103.5FM/Kobina Welsing
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