Vasquez Family Calls on G.O.B. Again in Wake of the Killing of Isaac Marin

Seventeen-year-old Isaac Marin from Caye Caulker was laid to rest over the weekend. The young man was killed early last week inside his home on the island. His cousin, Jaime Marin, a mental health patient, has been charged with the murder of Isaac and other charges relating to the attempt on the life of Isaac’s brother, Carlos.  The seventeen-year-old is the second person since June to be killed at the hands of persons with mental disorders.  In June, Nestor Vasquez Junior was brutally beaten in a cell and killed by a mental health patient who had stabbed a nurse. The Vasquez family has issued a statement on the recent killing of young Marin. The statement reiterates their call on the government to take immediate and decisive action to address the deficiencies in the mental health care services available in this country.  G.O.B. is urged to establish an acute unit at the K.H.M.H. to provide urgent care to persons experiencing volatile psychotic episodes and a forensic unit for patients whose condition involves prolonged episodes which may pose a threat to themselves or others. The Vasquez’s also say that the practice by families of persons with mental illness who function  as their mental health care providers, has to stop because they are not trained to so do.