Mental Health Among Issues to be Discussed at Wellness Symposium

Robyn Daly

With the stresses associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the key focuses of the symposium will be mental health, which Daly says has been affected the entire family – from students to parents who have lost their jobs and are trying to make ends meet and even those persons who are high risk.

Robyn Daly, Nutritionist, Ministry of Health

“A lot of people are going through some tough time; they are losing loved ones, they are being diagnosed with the disease; some of them have lost their jobs. People are going through different kinds of stress that would cause poor mental health and we need to be able to find ways to support these people. And this is one of our topics that we will be presented on; it’s in different areas too. We have young persons, which would be our adolescent group and we have the adult population and even children, they are not at school with their friends. They are not playing. So we have mental stresses among different age groups that need to be addressed. Another area as well is the substance abuse that happens as a result of poor mental health. People are stressed, they turn to a substance; so they would either be drinking or smoking extra than they would normally do to cope. And we want to encourage people not to resort to these types of practices which can only make you more unhealthy.”