Appoint Psychology Counsellors For The  Appiatse Explosion Affected Victims Now! ---Wacam Associate Executive Officer Appeals To Gov't

The Associate Executive Director of Wacam, Mrs. Hannah Owusu-Kronteng, has stressed the urgent need for the government to appoint the special psychological counselors for the hundreds persons generally affected by the deadly explosion incident in Appiatse, a gold mining and farming community in the Prestea Hunni-Valley Municipality of the Western Region.

According to Mrs Owusu-Kronteng who was very sad about the lost of lives in the Appiatse explosion incident explosion, her call on government has become necessary because credible envidences on the grounds in the area have showed clearly that those who were severely affected by the incident had been facing a serious traumatic problems.

Following this phenomenon, she stressed that it is a high time for government to engage the services of special physiological counselors to take the victims including the entire residents living in Appiatse community through periodic screaming orientation.

Mrs Owusu-Kronteng was speaking in an interview with Soireenews com on the sideline after the Wacam with the support of Oxfam launched a comprehensive report on the research it has conducted on the Appiatse explosion disaster. 

She was of the view that "if you went through explosion disaster or other forms of accidents, you need to be taken through proper relief process, even if you are physically sound, your mind is not on yourself."

"So it is very important especially for those who were injuried, the children and relatives of those who lost their lives and also the entire people in Appiatse community should be taken through a lot of counselling. Because the incident has really affected every households in the area," she further stressed.

According to Mrs. Owusu-Kronteng, she was strong believe that taking the affected victims through the counseling would help them to be properly relieved from that trauma that they had gotten through."

She stated that the government should not assumed that all is well with the victims and entire people living in Appiatse community, only for the person to realize somethings in five years after you may realized that all is not well with them. 

'If you look at the analysis of the effects of the Appiatse explosion accident, apart from the socio-cultural and economic dimensions of it, you could see it is an explosive when the truck got exploded with the pieces of the truck scathed all over the community and that some of the pieces of exploded truck entered bodies of human beings in the area.

"And l think that if the victims were not really scream, some of these affected people, you know they are physically sound, they surely experiences hazard in the future," Mrs Owusu-Kronteng added.

She pointed that "just taking off the explosive metal from the affected persons, should be  an indications that such affected persons were treated from their health problem.

In this sense, Mrs Owusu-Kronteng stressed the urgent need for these people to be taking through the effective phycological orientation or counseling to re-prepare the mind set of the affected victims rather living in them their current fates which would be dangerous to their lives in the future.

She  pointed out that apart from suffering the physical disorder the victims also have mental psychological effects which the need from the government to streamline the situation.

When asked which ways the psychological services to done to the affected victims, she responded that "that is why they are keeping on demanding the report of the committee to should be released to the public for the people is this country to know who is liable to the cause to the cause of the incident in Appiatse community."

She indicated that the company which was transporting the explosion materials to its mining site before it got exploded at Appiatse community and killed these persons and injuried many other residents was covered by the insurance.

"So for instance like somebody involving in vehicular accident once you are covered by the insurance, when some of these incidents happened, insurance would have the packages and l am sure that it would cover the cost of physical and psychological effects costs of the victims, so if it is not done over a period of time, and they are given some rents or rewards, the victims can take care of themselves else where.

"However in the case of Appiatse community explosion incident, the report should be released to the public by now so that many individuals can go to the law court to demand their compensation packages of some of this incident and also the collective actions by the Appiatse community," Mrs. Owusu-Kronteng re-emphasized.