Has Memuna a family?

Asks Doreen Hammond
THE story in the Daily Graphic of Thursday April 21, 2011 was sad and surprising. It was reported that a mother of a ten year old in Sefwi –Tantrim in the Western Region had held her daughter’s head in water until she died.
According to the police, the mother, Memuna Salam, held the legs of her daughter, Isha, and forcibly plunged her head into a container she had already filled with water until the girl was lifeless.
In January last year, Ghanaians were faced with a very similar incident. A 31-year-old woman, Georgina Pipson, killed all her five children through food poisoning. The matter d id not end there, for Georgina took her own life. The public outcry was great but after several discussions in the media the matter went to rest. Georgina was also a mentally ill patient who had relapsed. And who were to bear the fatal brunt but Georgina’s own five children .
The Psychiatric Hospital is not a place where the mentally ill are kept forever. It is a place where the mentally ill receive treatment and return to their family just like malaria patients would. But often times, people see the mentally ill as dangerous and troublesome, they go begging the doctors at the psychiatric hospitals to keep them there indefinitely.
Other family members go to the extent of leaving their mentally ill patients in the hospital deliberately giving wrong contact details; the reason for this is obvious— they would never come back for their own even if he/she gets better and they don’t want to be traced.
Worse still, some will just dump their mentally ill at the gates of the psychiatric hospital, look left, right and left again and disappear.
The reasons for this situation vary including the reason that some families are too concerned about the stigmatisation associated with mental illness and would therefore not want it known that one of their own is mentally ill. They are therefore too ready to abandon them.
Recently, a number of inmates of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital who had been cured of their mental illnesses were faced with forced ejection from the hospital.
The Chief Psychiatrist, Dr Akwasi Osei, said the inmates had all been declared fully recovered and discharged from the hospital but they had refused to leave and make way for other patients.
The hospital, however, arranged transport and other logistics and managed to send some of the patients to their homes.
Why would patients on admission who have recovered refuse to go back to their family? Could it have been the fear of neglect and stigmatisation by their own families? Something is definitely wrong somewhere because other patients on admission in some hospitals look forward to going home— Home sweet home.
The story of Memuna raises some issues. The questions that readily come to mind are : Was there nobody at all around when she dipped her daughter’s head in water until she died? Especially when it was no secret that she had a record of two similar acts that had earlier taken away the lives of two other children? Who was concerned about whether Memuna followed up on her treatment at the Psychiatric Hospital or not? Where is Isha’s father and what are his responsibilities to his daughter? Did the family members of Memuna provide her with the obvious support she needed as a mentally ill patient by ensuring that she took her medications? And why did they leave the care of her daughter solely in her hands?
I would not go into the relationship between crime and mental disorders; that was done extensively by the experts when Georgina Pipson did the unthinkable. I would not go into the issues of social welfare and children’s homes where one would think Memuna’s daughter would have been safer. This is because we are all aware of the challenges these institutions face with facilities, finances and staff. The case of the Osu Children’s home got so much publicity recently for all the bad reasons. But how about the family? Does Memuna have a family? Where is Isha’s father and what is his responsibility to his daughter ?
The two cases of Georgina and Memuna have brought to light once more the indication that we are not doing too well with being our neighbour’s keeper and that the extended family support system is gradually breaking down.
Everybody seems so busy these days chasing money that the very values we used to cherish, looking out for one another is getting lost. In an extended family system, not all members are able to join the chase for money ( Not by choice though). Some stayed at home while others went but their role was appreciated by the haves taking care of the have nots. Some found themselves at home and they looked after people like Memuna.
Interestingly, the family system is very active when the ultimate happens—death. You get to see the Abusuapanyin issuing instructions as to his likes and dislikes based not on principles but his interests! Members surface in full regalia to give instructions as to how the funeral must be organised. They start apportioning blame to anyone but themselves! In most cases the sole interest is how to benefit from the death and to gain cheap popularity.
Out of neglect, innocent children have lost their lives. Why can’t we go back to the era where the family served as an institution for emotional and financial support? Where family members are each others keeper. If that is becoming impossible because of the difficult economic times then now is the time to strengthen the institutions that cater for the welfare society— Institutions that protect the child. No more children should suffer what Memuna and Georgina’s children have suffered!

Writer’s email : aamakai@hotmail.com