– UK- based psychologist urges Guyana

IN order to provide more effective mental health services in Guyana, United Kingdom (UK)-based Psychologist, Dr. Krish Nauth, believes more focus should be given to identifying and subsequently treating anxiety and depression.

Mental health is one aspect of overall health, in addition to social and physical health. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), mental health is defined as a state of well-being in which every individual realises his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community.

According to Dr. Nauth, an overseas-based Guyanese, mental illnesses are prevalent in Guyana and there needs to be more concerted efforts geared towards fostering a healthier population in this regard.

“You need to focus on anxiety and depression. It is the most common across-the- board[mental] illnesses,” he said, adding “Serious and enduring mental health illnesses, things like schizophrenia, you are going to have those but you have one broad area [i.e. anxiety and depression] to work on initially.”

Dr. Nauth is currently in Guyana to bolster the capacity of professionals in the mental health sector. “In response to the suicide rate in Guyana, I’ve been trying to do something to help the country,” he said.

He is conducting a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to identify and treat anxiety and depression, with or without suicidal tendencies. So far, he has trained persons in Regions Two and Three and will be training people in Berbice.

He shared that he and his team from the UK are in Guyana to train “frontline people”, those who actually interact with and treat patients, so that they can adopt better practices to provide better healthcare to affected persons.

“We don’t need people coming in for half a day, or one day, standing up and telling us what to do,” Dr. Nauth said. Instead, he posited, “We need people who will come and show us what it is that needs to be done.”

It is this model of teaching that he employs in his four-day training activities.

THEORY IN PRACTICE
“We incorporate theory into active learning processes… We teach how to observe somebody for depression and then we demonstrate how to do it,” he explained further.

Subsequent to this four-day training, the professionals are left for about five months, during which time they are required to set clinical goals and a framework for how they can measure progress. Dr. Nauth and his team would then return to measure the progress made.

From his recent visits to Guyana, he is of the opinion that the country has a myriad of resources to provide assistance to persons with mental illnesses. The challenge, however, he said, is that there is little coordination in the way these services are offered. If this coordination improves, he believes that Guyana will be able to offer better health services, and importantly, could be able to reduce its high suicide rate.

In a 2014 report by the World Health Organisation, Guyana was cited as the country with the highest suicide rate in the world — 44.2 suicides per 100,000 deaths, four times the global average.

Mental Health Unit Director at the Public Health Ministry, Dr. Util Richmond-Thomas, recently shared with Guyana Chronicle that through much work and effort and collaboration with agencies, that number has been reduced to 24 suicides per 100,000 deaths, recently.

Nevertheless, Dr. Nauth highlighted that these figures are still worrisome since every life is of equal and utmost importance.

During his stay in Guyana, Dr. Nauth made a presentation on mental health at a recent forum organised by the University of Guyana (UG).

In addition to this, he also donated a collection of psychology journals to the university’s library, which was a gift from the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP), where he is clinical advisor. The BABCP is a British-based multi-disciplinary interest group for people involved in the practice and theory of cognitive behaviour therapy.