COVID-19: Patient at Accra Psychiatric Hospital tests positive; 110, including doctors in isolation
A mentally challenged woman at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, COVID-19.
The hospital admitted the woman on April 20, 2020, and she developed symptoms a few days later. She was later tested for COVID-19 and transferred to an isolation unit on April 23. On April 27, her test results confirmed positive for the virulent disease.
According to the Chief Executive of the Mental Health Authority, Dr Akwesi Osei, his outfit had a difficult time trying to get the patient to be admitted in a COVID-19 treatment centre.
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He said the municipal authorities, who had to approve the patient’s transfer to a treatment centre, refused to do so. He explained this was simply because she was mentally ill.
“Before you transfer a patient from your facility to a treatment centre, you need to go through your district or medical directorate. They need to come in and look at that and approve. So when they were invited, they came, but they said ‘no’ because she is a psychiatric patient and they can’t handle the patient there.
“Meanwhile, every health worker has been given some basic knowledge in mental health care. This is purely an act of discrimination. Eventually, we needed to seek the intervention of the Chief Director at the Ministry of Health before the patient was admitted to the treatment centre,” Dr Osei lamented.
He explained that the 110 persons which include doctors, nurses, 11 inmates and some contacts at the facility have had their samples taken for testing.
According to him, management recalled other staff to take care of the mentally challenged, whiles the other staff were kept in isolation awaiting their COVID-19 test results.
Ghana’s COVID-19 case count jumped from 1,671 to 2,074. 17 people have died and 212 others have also recovered from the disease, according to updates provided by the Ghana Health Service (GHS).