Inmates of Kumasi Children’s home share facility with mentally disabled children

Inmates of Kumasi Children's home share facility with mentally disabled children

File photo.



Due to lack of accommodation, the inmates of the Kumasi children’s home face many challenges to the extent that the mentally handicapped children share the same facilities with the sane ones.

The home was built to cater for babies and toddlers but currently it houses teenagers as well. The government provides GH¢300 quarterly as subvention to the home, which is not enough for even a week.

Feeding and medical bills rely on inconsistent donor support. The home is overcrowded since it is housing normal, physically and mentally disabled children.

Madam Victoria Asunya, one of the managers of the Home told Luv FM the one of the inmates – a mentally retarded child – is violent hence, a threat to the others.

According to Madam Asunya, one child recently suffered serious head injuries after the mentally retarded boy repeatedly hit his head with a louver blade he broke from the window. He has also destroyed the wire mesh at the windows as well as defaced the walls, by smearing his excreta on it.

She said Managers of the Home took the mentally handicapped boy and another child with the same condition to the psychiatric hospital at Pantang in Accra but the hospital rejected the children saying they would not be able to feed the them.