Authorities of the Police Public Safety Training School (PPSTS) in the Upper East region have advised all recruits under training at the school to get torchlights to lead the way when they are going into the bush to attend to nature’s call.

The council follows a reported case of snake bite of one of the recruits who had gone to defecate in the bush at night.

According to Accra-based Starr Fm, a chronic water crisis at the school has rendered its flush toilets inoperative, leaving the recruits with no other alternative, but to resort to the bush as a place of convenience.

What makes the situation dicey is the fact that the school currently has about thousand recruits, of which more than 400 of them are females, and they all have to squat bush to ease themselves.

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Director of the school, ACP Adusah Poku who confirmed the news said “We have recorded one snake bite,”  and  “He was taken to the hospital. We also have anti-snake venom here; so, we took it along. Now, the bush is overgrowing. If you go there, you can have problems.”

It is not as though the school lacks toilet facility, but ACP Adusah Poku said “We have a 20-room toilet facility but we cannot use it because we don’t have the water to flush it. As for bathing, the recruits can get some water to bathe. The only water we have is for their feeding and for their bathing. But for the flushing, we don’t have the water. So, they have to go into the bush to ease themselves.”

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The victim whose name is withheld, made a catcall which attracted a number of other recruits who rushed into the bush, but the poisonous reptile had slithered away through the bush.

ACP Adusah Poku made a rather bizarre, but manageable suggestion, saying “Fortunately, the recruit survived the snake attack. But we’ve made them (the recruits) to acquire torchlights and they go there with a cutlass. If they go there without a cutlass and they defecate around, you can’t go there the next day. Over 800 recruits going to the bush, can you go there every day? That is why they have to dig a hole and cover it so that the next day they can still go there,” the Director said.

READ ALSO: WidowerUndying Love: Widower wears honeymoon polo shirt for two decades in remembrance of late wifeThe institution was established in 2005 and known as the Pwalugu Police Training School aimed at  training only recruits.

It was converted in 2014 into Police Public Safety Training School to groom recruits into police officers with the mandate to conduct international training programmes for both junior and senior police ranks on how to effectively counter cross-border terrorism attacks, armed robbery operations, and illegal mining activities among other high-risk security missions.

Starr Fm reports that, despite the upgrade, the school still lacks some requisite structures that befit an institution of that status. It's dormitories and classrooms need serious expansion so trainees can be conveniently accommodated.