The Accra Gye Nyame Lions and Leo Club together with IDonate Ghana on last Saturday donated assorted items to the Children’s ward of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital.

Some of the items included bags of rice, gallons of oil, detergents, disinfectants, buckets of powdered soap, liquid soap, packs of diapers, toilet rolls, scrubbing brushes and other cleaning materials.

Presenting the items, The President of the club, Lion Jennifer Dzikunu, said the donation was part of the national volunteer day which the club observes on September 21 every year alongside IDonate GH.

She said the club was poised to help people and communities in need tacking nine thematic areas including, “childhood cancer, hunger, youth, disaster relief, environment, humanitarian, vision and diabetes.’’

The club focuses on serving humanity and communities that are in need and is the largest humanitarian service organization in the world with 1.4m members in 49,000 local clubs servicing in 200 countries globally. 

Receiving the items, the Senior Nursing Officer at the hospital, Bridget Ayatey, thanked the donors and stated that it would go a long way to help them in the discharge of their work.

She also acknowledged that there were 14 patients currently at the children’s ward and had to change diapers of each of the 12 inmates, at least three times a day which made the diapers an important donation.

The Lead Volunteer of IDonate Ghana, Naa Amarley Tagoe, in an interview with The Spectator, stated that the organisation had supported the Accra Psychiatric Hospital Children’s Ward since 2016.

IDonate, is an online-based charity founded in 2014 that supports less fortunate children and those with special needs in public and private institutionalised care.

Naa Amarley said, “we redirected our fundraising efforts to support the hospital,” adding that, “the annual clean-up exercise, meal service, and supply donations have continued for eight years with inspiration from a December 2015 TV3 report highlighting patient neglect during festivities.”

As part of the donation, activities like feeding of inmates and clean up exercises were held as a way of interacting with the inmates and showing support.

By Nii Ayitey Brown