Mental Health Protection, Promotion Act now in effect

President Dr Irfaan Ali on Tuesday signed the Mental Health Protection and Promotion Act 2022 at the Office of the President, a stepping stone to enhancing care for persons in this category and widen mental health care.

The Mental Health Protection and Promotion Bill 2022 was passed in the National Assembly on August 8 of this year. Enshrined in the law is a series of rights for mental health patients, including access to care.
The Act provides for the mental health care of persons suffering from mental illness and protects, promotes and fulfils the rights of those persons during the delivery of mental health care. Additionally, it seeks to promote the mental health and well-being of persons in Guyana and to ensure that all persons receive the best mental health care.
When the Bill was tabled in the National Assembly, it provided for the setting-up of a Mental Health Board, while repealing the mental hospital ordinance. A perusal of the Bill showed that this Board, whose non-ex-officio members will hold office for three years and a maximum of three terms, will have a plethora of responsibilities.
These responsibilities include advising and assisting the Minister in the areas of mental health and promoting best practices when it comes to mental health care. They will also be tasked with inspecting all mental health-related facilities, with a view to making sure these facilities comply with the Act.
Clause 52 had outlined that the Board also has to “receive and investigate complaints on any matter connected with mental health care and treatment (and) undergo a periodic review at least once every six months of all persons receiving mental health care in a mental health facility”.
When the Bill was passed in August, Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony had labelled the legislation as a modern one that would positively impact the level of care for persons suffering from mental health issues.
“What we have before us refers to a very progressive piece of legislation. One of the things we recognised is that mental health is causing a lot of illnesses globally and if you look at the most recent statistics from the WHO, there were close to 280 million persons that suffer from depression, 45 million that suffer from schizophrenia, 50 million persons from dementia…”
He also added, “When you look at how you classify mental health illnesses, I think sometimes you group them in one large mental health illness. We actually have 22 major categories with 150 discrete illnesses. One of the problems you have with mental health is that it also contributes to prolonged disability.”
While the traditional method of addressing mental health patients was to institutionalise them, the Health Minister had positioned that this way does not allow for them to be integrated into society.
The modern way is to manage them without such harsh restrictions, and the Act now lays the foundation for Guyana to implement such.
Most recent statistics show that 15-20 per cent of the Guyanese population have some form of mental health illness, be it mild, severe, or acute. There are another 150 different conditions that can be classified as mental health illnesses.
With this in mind, there has been growth in the number of psychiatrists in the country, with provisions to train more doctors who wish to specialise in this field. (G12)