Wa! Jirapa! Stop Sleeping with Women who Are Mentally ill; CEO of Ideapath Consult Warns!
Mental health is a major component of universal health coverage. Despite the growing recognition of mental care, Ghana’s commitment to improving mental health care leaves much to be desired. In the Upper West Region Region, mental health care accessibility is a big issue.
Although there has been an increase in mental awareness, and a number of psychiatric nurses, there is an upsurge in the number of terminally ill persons roaming the streets of the major towns of the Upper West Region including Wa and Jirapa is very worrying.
This has equally led to an increase in pressure on the Bahass Foundation. The Bahass Foundation for close to two decades has been providing support services to the terminally ill such as hot meals, medical care, occasional bathing, and changing of clothes among others in the Upper West Region.
In recent times, the Bahass Foundation has observed that some of the female terminally ill persons living on the streets of the Upper West Region have become pregnant despite their predicament.
The Chief Executive Officer of Ideapath Consult who has been providing consultancy services to Bahass Foundation remarked that the invisible men in Wa and Jirapa who are having sexual affairs with the Mentally ill should desist from such shameful acts. He stressed that women who are mentally ill and carrying pregnancies did not become pregnant before their current state and some of them are even single ladies before their current predicament.
Mr. Tahiru Lukman stressed that there was a day Bahass Foundation nearly got a man who was attempting to take undue advantage of a female terminally ill person and luck was on his side so he managed to escape. This is not speculation rather we have enough evidence to arrive at this position. Believe me or not some men are enjoying sex with terminally ill persons.
Mr. Tahiru Lukman appealed to the consciousness of those men who derived pleasure from these terminally ill persons to have empathy and rather support the course of getting them restored and off the streets.
A mother of one of the female victims in the Jirapa Municipality who is heavenly pregnant hinted that her daughter was not carrying pregnancy until she became a mental health patient, then she realized men have taken undue advantage of her. She recounted how she has to deal with her state of ill health and pregnancy.
These were revealed when the National Lottery Authority paid a visit to the Bahass Foundation and an outreach visit to Jirapa Municipality to have a look at some of the terminally ill persons who are beneficiaries of Bahass Foundation initiatives.
The NLA Foundation donated some second-hand use clothing, sanitary goods, beverages, maize, rice and other valuable items to the Bahass Foundation and pledges to support Bahass Foundation with a temporal washroom for the bathing and changing of dresses of the terminally ill.
Tahiru Lukman
Youth Activist, Dev’t Consultant and Pan-African Author
Tel: +233 (0) 209154057 / +233 (0) 551018778
Email: lukmantahiru@rocketmail.com