Mental health care facility opened in Port Loyola
Mental Health Week officially ended today with the opening of a health day care centre. As News Five’s Marion Ali reports, the new facility will offer a range of psychiatric services to the public.
Marion Ali, Reporting
According to the local experts, of the almost three thousand patients who required psychiatric treatment last year approximately a third of them were in need of round the clock care. While an acute mental health day care centre isn’t an adequate solution, officials say it’s a good start.
Doctor Claudina Cayetano, Psychiatrist
“We are going to provide an alternative to in-patient care so that the patient can recover in their community. They have a place to sleep, families go to work, there’s no one at home, the patient can come to the hospital and receive treatment, medication, group therapy, and go home, and sleep at home with their relatives and they can see the improvement.”
Jose Coye, Health Minister
“The acute psychiatric clinic is what I would say is near to the secondary prevention side, so that the mental disorders do not reach to the chronic stage. At least we try to minimize it at that level.”
Marion Ali
“Now building infrastructure is quite an accomplishment but ensuring that the follow-up treatment is enhanced is quite another. How can your Ministry ensure that mentally ill patients will get the enhanced quality that you’re talking about?”
Jose Coye
“The Ministry of Health along with other sectors of the public sector and along with other members of the community will have to take an integrated approach in this prevention strategy. And while the Ministry of Health can be the lead Ministry in carrying out this integrated approach, we can provide the inputs in terms of the buildings and very much the human resource and equipment and supplies, those are very key to us. The challenge that will face us – as it is facing many other countries – that as you strengthen your information strategy, as you strengthen your health promotion through educating people, through putting them maybe into the curriculum in schools, educating them from an early stage, the challenge for us all as individuals, families, the community and the country on a whole is how do we get our people then to be motivated, to comply with what in fact are solutions to the problems. So while we have the building and certainly we have the equipments it is more in the behavioural side of it, it’s the behavioural science will be the challenge for us. How do we after educating you and informing you of a disease and the causes of it, how do we get you to comply and to be motivated to do the things that you can do to prevent the illness.”
According to Minister of Health, Jose Coye, while the Government is seeking funding for the development of an education and prevention strategy, there is also a plan in the works to meet the needs of mental patients who roam the streets.
Jose Coye
“In the next two months we will be opening what we call the Halfway Centre, the independent houses, and the occupational therapy centre in Belmopan. That is where we hope to deal with the chronic cases and hopefully to see how we can rehabilitate.”
“In visiting the Rockview Hospital we were looking at those who were there at the acute stage and perhaps to try to find a way how we can persuade the families to take them back and then we would give as much support to the families. We believe if they are in the family setting the chances of therapy being successful would be enhanced.”
Marion Ali
“But the reason why they’re there in the first place is because the families can’t take care of them.”
Jose Coye
“Well there are some cases where I believe that if the families were to cooperate with the Ministry that individual would feel far more comfortable. I think the family environment will be more conducive for the therapy. There are some cases where sometimes it is too far gone and that’s why we need to get to it long before.”
The Ministry of Health has also teamed up with their counterparts in the Ministry of Home Affairs to create a Mental Health Training Manual that will govern the way police officers are to deal with mental patients. Assistant Commissioner of Police Crispin Jeffries says the text will be incorporated in the new police training curriculum.
Crispin Jeffries, Assistant Commissioner of Police
“What we have is a number of sessions that were conducted as a part of developing this manual and we will endeavour to ensure that all officers throughout the Department countrywide are exposed to the contents of the manual. We hope that this will enlighten them and standardize some of the procedures provided by the manual as well as to look more at getting the equipment needed to support the manual and the training.”
Marion Ali
“But will they obliged to follow the manual or will that be optional?”
Crispin Jeffries
“It is an obligation. It is an undertaking that the Commissioner of Police has taken on. He is a part of this. The Deputy Commissioner Mrs. Leslie is directly responsible for the unit that conducts training across the country. Under her supervision, the people running training will be tasked to ensure that what is in the manual is passed on to the rank and file in the department.”
In addition to a new mental health facility that will open in Belmopan at the end of January, a similar clinic will also be located within the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital.
Reporting for News Five I am Marion Ali.
The acute mental health facility, which includes a doctor’s office, a quiet room and nurse’s station is located at the Port Loyola Health Clinic on Faber’s Road. The building was constructed by Lopez Equipment Company Limited. Funding for the three hundred thousand dollar investment was made possible through a loan from the Inter-American Development Fund.
