Journalists for Human Rights

Officials say more than 40% of Ashanti region residents have now registered with Ghana’s nascent National Health Insurance Scheme, with the goal of 60% by year’s end.   But the cost of registration is a hard sell for almost half the population struggling to get by on a dollar a day.  Kinks in the system and barriers to prompt care have prompted administrators to take measures to improve access and deliver service where it’s needed most.

Akwesi Asamoah Prempeh reports.

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Host: Evans Mensah

Produced by Steven Anti and Alison Lang

World Press Freedom day was instituted by the United Nations in 1993 to raise awareness of the importance of freedom of the press when it comes to developing member-states. It is also to remind governments of their duty to respect and uphold the right to freedom of expression enshrined under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The theme for this year’s celebration is Freedom of the Press, empowerment and participation of the people. Ghana has experienced press controls in the past, particularly under the rule of former president - and military man - Jerry Rawlings. JOY NEWS reporter Steven Anti and JHR staffer Alison Lang went for a stroll around Accra’s media houses to ask some of the country’s top journalists about the obstacles Ghanaian reporters face in the post-Rawlings era.

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As the rainy season slams into Accra, it brings overflowing drains, flooded homes and residents increasingly disenchanted with both government and the journalists who come to document their plight.

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It’s been nearly a year since the new educational reforms were launched by government. JOY NEWS has done some checks in Accra to see how the changes are working out, particularly with the new curriculum. But how has the programme fared in the resource-starved schools in the northern region? I paid a visit to a school outside of Tamale and discovered that the teachers have not yet received the new curriculum that was promised to them, and are struggling to help students remember what they’ve taught.

Bernard Saibu Reports

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As the United Nations marks World Water Day on March 20th, millions of people across the globe are thirsting for the world’s most important resurce.  In Ghana, shortages have reached crisis levels.  In some areas, it’s been years since water flowed from the taps.  The situation is impacting negatively on everything from health, to the economy, and even seemingly unrelated sectors, such as education.  Some people say the problem has worsened since Ghana contracted a private firm to manage the system.  Muftawu Mohammed reports.

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The Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly’s program to get the mentally ill off the streets appears to face serious challenges.  After months of talking, the assembly went into action at the beginning of the Africa Cup of Nations football tournament, which ended February 10th.  Thirty mentally ill people have been rounded up, with the idea of housing and rehabilitating them at the Kumasi Cheshire Home.

But while administrators at the Cheshire Home applaud the initiative, it appears to be plagued by problems.  Abena Amoah Gyamfi reports.

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Accra Psychiatric Hospital’s medical director, Dr. Akwasi Osei, has called upon Ghana’s Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) to force the Ghana Police Service to deal with throngs of patients living in substandard conditions in the hospital. This isn’t exactly news. The hospital, originally constructed to hold 200, now holds more than a thousand. Patients are brought in by the courts, their families, and some even walk off the street and admit themselves. Most eat one meal a day and more than half sleep on the floor due to a lack of beds. However, Dr. Osei has gone on to say that many patients at the hospital have been deemed mentally fit by staff and ready to integrate back into society. The problem is that many of them have nowhere to go, and thus are forced to stay within the confines of the hospital.  According to Dr. Osei, the situation is becoming increasingly dire. I went with JOY NEWS reporter Bernard Saibu to the hospital to speak with Dr. Osei and some of the patients in the “Special Ward” - built for 60 patients and holding 218. 150 of them are considered mentally healthy.  We asked the patients - who immediately began lining up in droves to tell their stories - whether they were ready to leave the hospital, and why they couldn’t. Their nurse, Atchoo, stood by us watchfully as we spoke. Although neither of us are mental health experts, most of the patients we spoke to were lucid and seemed self-sufficient, and this was confirmed by the nurses. Some told us they had been sent to the hospital after committing a crime while high on weed or drunk, and this was enough evidence to put their mental health in doubt. The stigma surrounding the mentally ill in Ghana isn’t as strong as in other African countries, but it’s there, in vernacular and in practice. You can see it in the way government officials - educated men living in the 21st century - refer to sick people living on the street as “lunatics” or “madmen.” More troublingly, you can see it in the faces of these abandoned men. Even if you’re considered healthy by medical experts, the stain of mental illness persists, driving away friends and family who have been shamed by your condition. As my colleague conducted some interviews in Twi, I looked around the ward - a single open-air room where the male patients circled about, bathed, or sat quietly listening to the radio. Occasionally arguments erupted around the room, while other men slept on sheets on the floor. One patient told us that although he felt fine, the claustrophobic environment of the ward sometimes made him want to kill himself. His brother used to come to visit but has not returned for some time. “I don’t understand,” he told us. “Why does he make me wait here? I want to go home.” After he finished speaking, he quietly thanked us, shook our hands and returned to a bench near the middle of the room. He joined a group of men sitting and listening to the radio. None of them spoke. We went back to the station where Saibu filed this report.

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As Ghanaians indulge in another National Chocolate Day, recent news releases would suggest that the country’s cocoa industry is finally paying off for farmers. Government has provided road repairs, scholarships and bonuses for farmers in regions across the country. Meanwhile, a number of fair trade initiatives are trying to equalize the relationship between cocoa farmers and the companies that purchase their beans. However, the farmers themselves tell a different story. Seth Kwame Boateng traveled to a cocoa-farming village in the Amansie West District of the Ashanti Region. He reports that some cocoa farmers are still struggling to make ends meet even as they produce the country’s second-largest export.

Seth Kwame Boateng reports with files from Alison Lang

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Many of the world’s miracle economic turnaround stories have been written with the aid of the information superhighway.  Countries like Mayalasia and Singapore have been able to transform their economies in a short period of time, due in large part to the widespread of embrace of, and investment in information technology.  Is such a turnaround possible in Ghana?  There are signs the country is waking up to the importance of computers and the internet, but there are still significant hurdles.  Kofi Adu-Domfeh investigates.

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