The Sompahemaa Foundation, as part of the 5th Anniversary of its Founder and Executive Director, Nana Mrs Irene Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu as Sompahemaa of Suame Municipality (which subsequently gave birth to the Foundation) has embarked on a three-day medical outreach programme for staff and inmates of the Nsawam Medium Security Prison.
The Sompahemaa Foundation, which seeks, among other things, to improve healthcare delivery of vulnerable women, children and the marginalised in society has assembled about 150 volunteers comprising 120 medical doctors and paramedics, and medical equipment and drugs worth several thousands of Ghana Cedis to provide free medical outreach services to the prison community which has 3,243 male inmates with 870 officers and 79 female incarcerations with 250 officers of the Ghana Prisons Service.
The Guest of Honour for the occasion was the Sompahene of Suame Municipal Area, Nana Dr. Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, MP for Suame and the Vice Chairman of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.
The Sompa couple were met on arrival by the Eastern Regional Commander of the Prisons Service, DDP Kwaku Ababio Ali, ably assisted by the top hierarchy of the Eastern Regional Prisons Command. The team was later joined by the Director-General of the Ghana Prisons Service, Mr. Isaac Kofi Egyiri.
After a closed-door meeting, where officers of the Prisons Service ostensibly briefed the group on the do’s and don’ts of the facility, the Sompahene and Sompahemaa were taken on a tour of the prison facility to acquaint themselves with firsthand knowledge of the operations and conditions at the facility.
Various sectoral heads, such as those in charge of education, reformation and medical units, were given the opportunity to lead in discussing progress made so far at their respective departments, and also to enumerate challenges being faced in their daily operations to the Sompahene, Nana Dr. Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, who coincidentally is the Leader of Government Business at the Parliament of Ghana.
The Medical Superintendent of the Nsawam Prison Hospital, Dr. Lawrence Acheampong took the Sompa couple and their entourage through some touching predicaments at the prisons hospital. He disclosed that the facility now has a fully-fledged district hospital status under the HeFRA, and is used as the only Referral Center for all prisoners in the country.
He walked the couple through the five (5) wards where inmates with chronic and highly infectious diseases had to be kept and taken care of on a daily basis, including those suffering from mental and gerontological problems.
Dr. Acheampong narrated situations where incapacitated inmates would have to serve their entire sentences in the hospital.
The Hospital Administrator corroborated Dr Acheampong’s narrations and attributed their major setback in effective healthcare delivery to delays in the payment of NHIA claims. He was, however, happy with the low mortality rate at the hospital, which stood at about 3 deaths per year per every 1000 inmates.
He bemoaned the fact that the facility was being run solely with claims from the National Health Insurance Authority since its location does not allow the provision of medical services to the outside community, a situation which would have afforded them the opportunity to earn some income. He, therefore, appealed to the Sompahene, Nana Dr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, to impress upon the Government to, through the NHIA, prioritise on-time payments of NHIA claims from the facility.
The couple was also briefed on how some inmates are offered the opportunity to further their studies whilst serving their sentences.
At every stage of the tour, a visibly shattered Majority Leader of Ghana’s Parliament reiterated the need for inmates to hold fast onto the Lord and to also take whatever reformations they were being taken through seriously. He advised them to ‘never say never’ in this life. In his quest to comfort and encourage the inmates, the Sompahene narrated the story of an 85-year-old pensioner-turned-billionaire who started a new business with just US$105 at age 65.
In the relatively nicer, more humane conditions at the female prison, the Sompahemaa expressed how she always got moved by already vulnerable women whose freedoms get curtailed, this time not by household activities, but by the law.
She urged them to be guided by the Bible at all times and remember that “it is possible for something positive to come from Nazareth.”
Ashantibiz
