Daily Graphic, pg. 11. Sat. Jan. 09/10
Story Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho
The news of Georgina Akweley Pipson, a 32-year-old alleged mentally ill mother who took the lives of her five children and later died at the Police Hospital in Accra, could be described as shocking and pathetic.
It is shocking because every normal mother is supposed to love and care for her children and not to harm them. It never crossed the minds of the innocent children that the caring woman they had always known and obeyed as their mother, had a problem that could make her give them food laced with poison to kill them.
It is also pathetic because medical experts have confirmed that the late Georgina, who was suffering from postpartum psychosis, was admitted to the Pantang Hospital in Accra on two occasions and her condition made her experience manic episodes, which are usually separated by periods of "normal" mood. It was unfortunate that over the years, no one, either from the family, community or the nation, intervened somewhere to bring help to the seemingly depressed women.
The Medical Director of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital, Dr Akwasi Osei, in an interview, described the case of Georgina and her five children as an indictment on the healthcare system of the country.
According to him, medical reports on the 32-year-old lady showed that she had been admitted twice, (dates were not given), each after birth, to the Pantang Mental Hospital for postpartum psychosis, a mental condition that occurs in some women after delivery.
The mere fact that she was admitted twice for this very condition, he said, showed that she had a mental condition known in medical circles as bipolar disorder and therefore needed continuous monitoring.
Bipolar disorder also known as manic-depressive disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated mood clinically referred to as mania or, if milder, hypomania.
According to him, individuals who experience manic episodes also commonly experience depressive episodes or symptoms, or mixed episodes in which features of both mania and depression are present at the same time.
These episodes are usually separated by periods of "normal" mood, but in some individuals, depression and mania may rapidly alternate, known as rapid cycling and extreme manic episodes, which can sometimes lead to psychotic symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations.
Dr Osei said signs and symptoms of the depressive phase of bipolar disorder include persistent feelings of sadness, anxiety, guilt, anger, isolation, or hopelessness; disturbances in sleep and appetite; fatigue and loss of interest in usually enjoyable activities; problems concentrating; loneliness, self-loathing, apathy or indifference; depersonalisation; loss of interest in sexual activity; shyness or social anxiety; irritability, chronic pain with or without a known cause, lack of motivation, and morbid suicidal ideation.
In severe cases, the individual may become psychotic, a condition also known as severe bipolar depression with psychotic features, which, according to Dr Osei, can lead to one committing suicide or killing one’s husband or children.
According to Dr Osei, although Georgina was given adequate care at the psychiatric hospital when she was admitted on both occasions, the lack of enough community psychiatric nurses in the country and the breakdown of family support systems coupled with the lack of a Mental Health Law in the country were contributory factors that led to the unfortunate incident.
He said the country currently had only 115 community psychiatric nurses and this he said was inadequate as at least 10 of such nurses were needed in every district across the country.
According to him, people with such conditions needed to be encouraged by either a community psychiatrist or a family member to take their medications.
He said the incident had revealed a serious inadequacies in the country’s healthcare delivery and this needed to be forestalled to prevent further future occurrences.
He added that mentally disabled people were handicapped in the country as there was no law protecting them, since the Disability Act was yet to be fully implemented while the Department of Social Welfare was also seriously constrained to take care of their needs.
A Social Worker and Executive Director of Child Rights International, Mr Bright Appiah, attributed the main cause of the death of 32-year-old Georgina and her five children to breakdown of the Ghanaian family system and the weak social protection systems in the country.
The woman allegedly killed her five children through food poisoning and tried committing suicide but was rescued by the police and later died at the Police Hospital in Accra in the early hours of Thursday.
Ms Pipson was found in a skirt and blouse with a small purse. In the purse was a small diary, in which she had chronicled some interesting statements relating to her life.
Some of the statements read: ”I was born in December 1977”, “I am alone in this world, God why, God why”, “I don’t have a mother or father, who am I” and “Georgina with three boys and two girls.”
Others are “My People deserted me”, God give me hope”, “forgive me and my children, Nana, Kwaku, Angel, Kofi, Esi”, “What a painful world”, “God have mercy on me and my children”, “Why, Kojo my husband,” and “Kojo, I do love you and will never forget you.”
Although the woman was known by her family, including the husband who divorced her about three years ago, to have a mental history, nothing much was done about it to protect her and the children.
Hitherto, the family support system was very strong in the country as people always had aunties, nieces and grandparents taking care of their children for them when the need arose.
But today due to several factors such as economic conditions of people, globalisation and migration, families have become more of nuclear entities than extended.
This has, therefore, given room to neglect, isolation and abandonment of family members, especially, those who need help such as Ms Pipson.
According to Mr Appiah, apart from what the family could have done to help Ms Pipson, she also had a right to enjoy rehabilitation and maintenance from the state due to her mental condition and because of the children, but that was not done because the social protection system of the country is also not effective.
The weak social protection system in the country, according to Mr Appiah, led to the inability of authorities to identify and provide the needed support for Ms Pipson and her children.
The Department of Social Welfare, which according him had the responsibility to cater and provide for the woman and her children when they were in need, could not go to their aid because it was difficult to identify such isolated cases in the country as there were no reporting mechanisms from hospitals or family members that they could follow.
Mr Appiah said if Ms Pipson’s condition had been identified and given the needed help by the state, such a tragedy would not have occurred.
He stressed the need to strengthen the country’s legal systems that protect children, saying that if all the social protection structures in the country including the legal system had been strong, the children of Ms Pipson could have been taken away from her by the state so that they could be given the needed care.
He said the social protection laws of the country did not give 100 per cent custody of children to their parents, saying that the state had the right through the Social Welfare Department to take custody of any child it thought needed such protection.
In cases of divorce, Mr Appiah said there was the need for the law to clearly define when social welfare could intervene when it was established that the right of children in a marriage were being trampled upon.
He called on Parliament to come out with laws that would restructure child protection issues in the country, saying that the protection of children should be paramount in the country.
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