COVID-19 and Mental Health

Marvin Manzanero

Back to COVID-19; Belize has been able to abate a so-called first wave of the corona virus by implementing strict measures under a state of emergency.  Those regulations are only just being relaxed as we near the end of the existing S.O.E.  While there are no known plans to extend or renew the state of emergency beyond June thirtieth, the Ministry of Health is preparing to deal with mental situations that may arise from another rash of coronavirus cases.  According to Doctor Marvin Manzanero, a system has to be put in place to deal with a mental strain in the event that the health system itself becomes overwhelmed with new cases.

Question

“Is there anything in place for mental patients?”

Dr. Marvin Manzanero, Director of Health Services

“Well I know that one of the items that we are looking at is training the health staff to deal with mental situations, not only for the general public but for healthcare workers.  Understand that we have not really had a wave, we never really had a wave one, if you will, that we get overwhelmed with a number of cases and once, if you have any potential surge in cases you can have a mental strain on your health workers.  So there need to be mechanisms in place in terms of taking care of that.  I don’t know that any of the regional facilities across the country have not gone back to where they were in terms of the mental situation for patients.”