Accra, Aug. 12, GNA - Help Africa Incorporated, an international non-profit making organization, through its local subsidiary “Come Help Africa”, has donated assorted items to the Accra Psychiatry Hospital and the Princess Marie Louise Children’s Hospital in Accra.

The items included hospital beds and used clothes for the inmates of the Psychiatry Hospital. The children’s hospital also received used clothes, toys, and children’s books, among others.

Earlier in the year, the NGOs had also presented 40 mattresses and other equipment to the Hohoe Government Hospital. So far, more than 5,000 dollars has been spent on all the donations.

The Reverend Kennedy Odzafi, President and founder of both NGOs, said it was their aim to provide services through donations to individuals, families and orphanages that lacked the basic necessities of life, as well as hospitals, schools, and other institutions that were in need of equipment and materials to improve their services.

“As non-profit agencies, Help Africa Inc. and Come Help Africa are organizations that provide services through donations to individuals, families and institutions in Africa in general and Ghana in particular, to improve the lives of the needy and institutions to provide better services to the communities they serve ,“ he said.

The Rev. Odzafi, who is also a Pastor with the Ewe Church of America and a Senior Psychiatric Rehabilitation Counselor, said during his recent visit to Ghana, he came face-to-face with the dilapidating and inhuman situations in some of the Hospitals and other institutions.

“At the Korle Bu maternity ward for instance, where the future leaders of the country are being born, it is sad to observe that mothers and their new-born babies have to sleep on the bare floor.

“At the Accra Psychiatric Hospital, patients were lying on the bare cold cement floor, some even with no clothes on,” he lamented.

The Rev. Odzafi said based on first hand information he gathered during his visit he took the decision to set up a subsidiary NGO (Come Help Africa) to link with the mother one in the US (Help Africa) to reach out to Ghanaians.

He said Ghanaians abroad were ready to sacrifice and contribute to the development of the country but were challenged by the unfriendly bureaucracy of government policies and regulations, including unrealistic heavy taxes on goods meant for charity.

The Rev. Odzafi described as unfortunate an instance in 2007, when 80 beds and 130 mattresses were shipped to be donated to the Ho, Hohoe, Peki, Kpando and Adidome government hospitals but the items did not reach the beneficiaries due to their inability to pay the shipping costs.

He stressed the need for the government to support institutions to clear goods shipped to them from overseas, so that the donors would not be overburdened with clearing, adding that the government should look into taxation laws on goods coming to the country from non-profit or non governmental agencies.

“It is frustrating to ship relief goods to our ports and be taxed so much so that the donor has to abandon the goods at the ports, he said.”