Nana Osei-Bonsu, a socio-economic analyst, has expressed his concern about the poor living conditions of the security service(police) in the country.
According to him, the poor accommodation of these policemen could be a contributing factor to mental illnesses such as depression. For him, he is much more concerned about this subject because, depression could also lead to someone taking his/her life.
“Some of the things that I look at is what kind of living conditions, because we are all in this country and we hear of complaints and people talking about poor accommodation of the police and all that stuff.” He said.
“We hear that and they are humans just like everybody else, so that can be a contributing factor which will lead to depression, which will lead to possible mental illness and when people feel like they are tired of living, then they decide to take their lives”.
A senior police officer allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself at Bortiman near Ashaiman, in the Greater Accra Region not long ago.
According to information we have gathered, the officer, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Divine Asiam, was with the Legal and Prosecutions Unit of the Ghana Police Service. This comes after 2 Other police officers committed suicide.
Speaking to Focus FM’s Blessing Doe on the Teknokrat show, Nana Osei-Bonsu called for a re-assessment of the mental and physiological health of security personnel.
“There has to be re-assessment of the mental and the physiological wellbeing of police personnel.
“In any advanced country, these services are made available to them because of the kind of work that they do.
“Their work is not only tiring but when they are leaving their families to go to work, they don’t know whether they will come back or not so with all these kind of risk, they need physiatrists and counsellors to be made available to them.’’ He added.
He further stated that confidential departments should be created for police personnel to seek counselling when they go through physiological problems.
“If an employee has marital issues, alcoholic issues, depression issues, they are made to them confidentially and so the person doesn’t feel like when he contacts this department which handles such issues, they are going to bring what is happening to them to the general public and this is one area that is very critical when it comes to the police service.’’ He finished
By: Blessing Doe/Focusnewsroom.com
