Striking nurses at the Pantang Psychiatric Hospital in Accra are turning away new patients after the Chief Executive Officer of the Mental Health Authority Dr. Akwasi Osei failed to convince them to back down on their ongoing protest.
The nurses are protesting the failure of government to stop the activities of private individuals who are encroaching on lands belong to the facility.
Dr. Osei who had pleaded with the nurses to defer the strike while he dealt with the appropriate authorities over their concern told Starr News his staff are playing politics with the lives of patients.
“They are playing politics with the lives of patients. Initially they said they were on a sit-down strike… meaning they will be at the hospital, and that also means they will only attend to emergency cases, and they said that they are going to do that for today and tomorrow. And Wednesday, if they don’t hear anything then it will be total withdrawal of services, so they won’t even show themselves at the hospital,” Dr. Osei narrated.
He however added “What we are hearing now is that they (Staff) are converting the sit-down to a total withdrawal… even as of now. We are going to meet with them; we’ve met with the management and we are going to meet with them to look at the situation. Whichever way it is, we want to encourage them that “yes” they have a big issue and we can put ourselves in their shoes, but it should not lead to the poor patient suffering. This is what I call playing politics on the patient and we should not play politics with the patient”.
