The Public Health Ministry’s Mental Health Unit is setting its sights on training prisoners who display exemplary behaviour to act as counsellors for their fellow inmates to promote the Unit’s drive to inculcate coping mechanisms.
According to the Mental Health Unit Director, Dr Util Thomas, the Unit is looking into that aspect as a means to motivate inmates to cope well while incarcerated so that they do not attempt suicide or have mental breakdowns.
Mental Health Unit Director, Dr Util Richmond-Thomas
“They have to learn coping skills, because when they get out of prison, they will have to cope with so much things. They will go to get jobs; nobody will give them jobs. People will distrust them and the stress of proving yourself over and over again will be there, so coping skills to them will be a big help,” she stressed. The Georgetown Public Hospital Psychiatric Clinic sees approximately 25 prisoners on a weekly basis for various mental health conditions. Dr Thomas said when these persons would be placed in the prisons and have to wait lengthy periods for trial, their mental well-being is affected and as a result, they often slip into depression, which later affects them if they are proven innocent after trial. “We don’t have a high suicide rate in the prison system, because too much people is there, but when someone is isolated from their life and family, then they are bound to have some mental problems, so this initiative is an excellent one to help them to cope, so they can be reintegrated when they leave the system,” she added.
The Mental Health Unit is equipped with six trained psychiatrists, four psychologists and six social workers. However, in a country with a population of over 750,000, it means that one psychiatrist would have to service at least 100,000 persons. In a country known for its high suicide rate, that is just not enough to combat the range of mental issues among Guyanese.
Additionally, the Unit has been able to train 40 doctors to deliver low-level mental health care to persons and intends to train all registered doctors to do the same. The Unit was formed as a component of the National Mental Health Action Plan.
The National Mental Health Action Plan 2015-2020 seeks to decentralise mental health care delivery and bring it to the grass-root level. As a requirement, the Unit is mandated to train 80 per cent of the doctors in the mental health Gap (mhGap) programme by the year 2020. However, Dr Thomas said that they are going one step further and would be training all of the registered doctors to provide mental health care.
The Mental Health Action Plan also seeks to reduce the role of the National Psychiatric Hospital (NPH), in Berbice, reducing the number of beds after deinstitutionalising psychiatric care and transforming the Psychiatric Hospital into a rehabilitation centre. The NPH rehab centre would specialise in psychosocial and drug abuse rehabilitative care.
The estimated cost to implement the plan is some $2.34 billion over the five-year period.
Another component of the Action Plan is the establishment of the Mental Health Institute, which will provide outpatient services to persons and would see the removal of the Psychiatric Clinic from the Georgetown Public Hospital. The area would be converted into a rehabilitation centre for persons suffering from different mental illnesses.
Construction of the Institute was expected to start on June 1, but heavy rainfall over the past month has resulted in work been postponed, according to a source.
