The wailing and anguish of relatives of mentally ill patients made no impression on striking nurses of the Pantang Psychiatric Hospital, who are protesting the takeover of their lands.

Work at Accra’s second public mental health facility located in the Adentan Municipal Assembly of Accra, came to a halt as nurses of the hospital took to the streets to demand immediate action from the government over what they say is the massive encroachment on their land by private developers.

The staff on Monday embarked on a partial strike and threatened a total withdrawal of services if they do not hear a positive response from the authorities concerned. 

Unfortunately, no meaningful response has come through from the government over the last 48 hours, since the staff signalled their intent.

The Health Ministry appears trapped because, a court ruling relating to the matter, has gone against the hospital.

The staff say the frontage of the facility has virtually been taken over by private individuals. Authorities of the hospital are concerned, it is improper for a facility of such nature, to have private individuals erecting structures within its premises.

JoyNews Maxwell Agbagbah reported on the Midday News that an intervention by Medical Director of the Hospital, Dr. Frank Baning to get the skeletal staff left behind to attend to mentally unstable patients who had reported to the hospital, yielded minimal results.

“All the people who reported here in the morning have left the facility,” the reporter observed.

Some relatives made fruitless pleas to get medication for their loved ones. 

A man who went to get medication for his sick son told JoyNews: “There’s nobody working.”

“Even the gates are locked up. The medication that he [patient] has been taking has finished so I don’t know how safe I’m going to be…If I don’t get it I could be attacked by my son,” the worried man said.

The tears from a mother of a 35-year-old woman suffering from mental disorder, did not move the nurses, the reporter noted.

The woman is worried about her daughter, who became violent because of her deteriorating condition fearing she “could attack and even kill [someone] if she is not given medication.” 

Meanwhile, Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyemang Manu is scheduled to meet the striking workers Wednesday.

As at midday when this report was being filed, the Minister had not yet arrived at the premises of the facility.