A/HRC/25/60/Add.1 65. The then Acting Director-General of the Prisons Service commissioned a formal inquiry regarding the actions of the authorities at the Senior Correctional Centre. It was found that the Chief Officer, contrary to agreed procedures, had flogged eight juveniles with twelve lashes on the back with a cane as a disciplinary act. Proceedings were initiated against three officers. The main perpetrator, the Chief Officer, has been dismissed from the Prisons Service. Proceedings against the duty officer and officer-in-charge are ongoing and the Special Rapporteur asks to be informed of the outcome. Women 66. At the time of his visit to Kumasi female prison, there were 177 females in detention. The conditions were generally better than in the male prisons, as overcrowding was less of a factor. However, not all the women were provided with bedding and the space for sleeping and recreational activities was very limited. The Special Rapporteur welcomes the fact that only female officers are deployed in those facilities and that no allegations of mistreatment by prison guards were raised. 67. The Prisons Service has established a mother and baby unit at Nsawam prison, where women who give birth while in custody can keep their babies with them until the age of one. However, at Kumasi some women said their babies were removed after only a few months and then placed with a family member or social services. There is no additional budgetary allocation for supplementary food for pregnant or breastfeeding women. D. Deprivation of liberty in mental health-care facilities Psychiatric institutions 68. There is no capacity to deal with mental illness within the prison system and there is also a serious shortage of mental health services in the country in general, with only 12 practising psychiatrists and 600 psychiatric nurses nationwide, for a population of over 25 million. That is only one psychiatrist for over 2 million people.7 According to the Director of the psychiatric hospital in Accra, to achieve proper care Ghana needs to increase the number of nurses in its three psychiatric hospitals almost sevenfold, from the current 600 to about 4,000. 69. There are only three public psychiatric hospitals and the Special Rapporteur visited two of them, in Accra and Ankaful. Both lacked qualified staff and equipment and had poor sanitation. Owing to the lack of medicine and food, both institutions have considerably reduced the number of patients in their care over the past two years, but the special ward of the psychiatric hospital in Accra where those under court orders are held still had an overcrowding rate of 100 per cent and many patients slept in an open courtyard in inhumane conditions. A number of those interviewed confirmed that there was insufficient food and that they were often hungry. At the Ankaful hospital, patients could move around an internal courtyard but could not otherwise leave their ward. 70. Mental health care is not covered by the national health insurance scheme, on the basis of a widespread assumption that mental health care in hospitals is cost free. However, the hospitals are underfunded and do not provide essential medication, as their annual stock of medicines provided by the Government is insufficient, running out after the first six months of the year, and lacks variety for the range of different psychiatric conditions being treated. Patients are often required to buy their own medicines, which are usually very expensive. 7 Human Rights Watch, “Like a death sentence: abuses against persons with mental disabilities in Ghana”, 2012, p. 28. 13