As part of the Guyana Government’s plan to tackle mental health issues in the country, the administration is working on deinstitutionalising patients who have been treated and should be allowed to reintegrate in society.
This is according to Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony on Wednesday, who pointed out that Guyana’s laws dealing with mental health were very old and antiquated.
In fact, the country’s Mental Health Ordinance dates back 1930. However, this was repealed in August after the People’s Progressive Party/Civic administration implemented in a series of new laws that now sees the country being governed by a modern and progressive Mental Health Legislation.
A major element of that new law is deinstitutionalisation, that is, having mental health patients reintegrated into society after treatment as oppose to putting them in the National Psychiatric Hospital and locking them away.
“The new way of treating mental health patients is really to have them at home and in the community and for them to function like normal persons because once they get their treatment, they’re able and capable of functioning like anybody else. And so, we shouldn’t be locking them away. They should be functioning in the society as regular people. So, we are going to work to make sure that this part of the legislation is implemented,” the Health Minister posited.
Presently, there are about 200 persons at the Psychiatric Hospital in Fort Canje, Berbice – many of whom should not even be there.
According to Dr Anthony, while the modern thrust now is to deinstitutionalise patients, this is proving to be difficult since families are not willing to accept these patients who have recovered through treatment.
“The challenge that we’re having is that the relatives of these patients sometimes do not want to accept them back home and so that has been one of the main reasons why many of these patients who can really go home, are not able to go home. So that is something that we’ll have to find some solution and deal with it,” he said.
The Health Minister outlined that the new legislation is centred more on patients’ rights to be treated them much better than what the previous legislation would have contemplated.
“This is really progressive. This is modern. This is what is happening is the more enlightened jurisdictions and so this is what we’re implementing here,” he added.
As it is, the exact number of mental health-related cases in Guyana is unknown since a lot of people with these illnesses – depression, anxiety, sycosis – goes undiagnosed. So, only a fraction of these cases are being recorded.
To this end, Dr Anthony pointed out that Government has been placing a strong emphasis on mental health issues.
“Mental health is something that is often not spoke about a lot but in terms of morbidity, we are seeing lots persons who suffer from various types of mental health illnesses and this something that we want to draw attention to because over the years, there have been lots of research that have been done and there are newer techniques on how to work with patients with mental health and sometimes people are not aware that these techniques exist,” he stated.
Only this week, a Suicide Prevention Bill was passed paving the way for the decriminalization of suicides, among other initiatives. Another intervention undertaken by this administration was reviewing the national Suicide Prevention Plan 2015-2020, which was done by two consultants from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), who determined how much of that plan was implemented, and from that, government was able to ascertain what needs to be done in the new plan.
The Health Minister explained that while strategies and plans are often implemented, they need constant reviewing because they tend to disconnect with the realities of a modern society.
Moreover, to further highlight importance of mental health not just in Guyana but in the Caribbean region, the Guyana Government has also initiated an annual Mental Health Conference – the second edition of which is slated for next week – November 15 to 18 at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre at Lillendaal, Greater Georgetown.
This conference will see presentations from an impressive line-up of experts in this field who will talk about a number of topics related to mental health. At least 20 global experts from Australia, South Africa, Europe, Asia and North America along with officials from PAHO/WHO Washington Mental Health Division and local stakeholders will be participating in the conference.
