Mentally deranged persons have yet again taken over the streets of Kumasi metropolis in the Ashanti Region raising concerns about the safety of pedestrians and road users.
Residents say one is likely to find a lunatic roaming the streets within every 100-metre interval; the activities of these mentally deranged persons had become a nuisance to them, and have thus called on city authorities to act swiftly.
Some of the inhabitants around Sofoline interchange, Asafo Market interchange, Airport Roundabout, Kejetia as well as Ashtown complained about the nuisance and danger such persons pose to them adding that Kumasi is fast deviating from its claim to fame as the Garden City of Ghana.
Otecnews Reporters Henry Aquah and Adu Gyamfi Priscilla, report that it is unknown where the naked and dangerously looking mentally retarded persons are coming from.
Some of the residents who spoke to our reporters indicated that they sometimes have to protect themselves from attacks from these mentally ill patients. Families have refused to cater for them while the state lacks rehabilitation structures for them.
But speaking to otecnews in an interview on Friday June 28, 2019, the deputy Director of Social Welfare Department in the Ashanti Region Mr Augustine Attah- Addae admitted that his outfit is aware of the challenge and is seriously working hard with Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) as well as Environmental Health Department to get rid of those mentally deranged persons from the streets.
“Ridding the metropolis of lunatics has become the biggest problem facing the Social Welfare Department, but non-availability of means of transport, the department had difficulties in conveying lunatics to the psychiatric hospitals,” Attah- Addae lamented.
According to him, the issue is getting out of hands since the Department lack basic facilities and resources to accommodate them and therefore appealed on citizenry and government come to their aid aimed at elimination those dangerous spices from metropolis.