-to help take better care of psychiatric patients
THE government is seeking to have more than twenty youngsters specially trained in neuropsychology so as to adequately address the needs of psychiatric patients here, according to Health Minister, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy. “This training will allow for them to be familiar with the behavioural patterns of these patients, and they would be able to handle the cases in the correct way,” he told the media at a press conference recently.
The trainees, upon completion of their studies, he said, will be ultimately responsible for ensuring that inmates maintain proper hygiene, take their medication, and visit their medical doctor and the psychiatrist, as is required.
Neuropsychologists, though not medical doctors proper, are nevertheless doctors of psychology, whose field of study is concentrated on the brain and its functions, in that their job is to determine the brain’s capacity with respect to short and long-term memory, abstract reasoning, attention, concentration, executive functioning, motor skills and other cognitive and psychological factors.
By comparing the pattern of these results against the patients’ pre-morbid capabilities, and correlating said results with the nature of the trauma suffered by the patient, the neuropsychologist can, with a reasonable degree of certainty, opine that individuals without an acute diagnosis of brain injury have permanent deficits as a result of brain trauma.
Minister Ramsammy said the venture at reference, which is already in progress, will complement recent developments at the National Psychology Hospital, Fort Canje Berbice.
A contract totalling some G$113M was just recently signed through an initiative to further develop the health sector which will see the construction of a new acute-care mental hospital and additional rehabilitation works.   
According to the Health Minister, the investment is the single largest of its kind for the psychiatric hospital within the last decade. He also noted that over the past three years, the government has expended in excess of $100 million in the sector also.
These initiatives, he said, will make for a significant improvement in  health care delivery here in the area of psychiatry and mental health, even though the country is still in a developmental stage.
He also noted that eight nurses, who are about to complete a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners Programme, will be stationed on the Psychiatric Ward of both the New Amsterdam Hospital and the Georgetown Public Hospital.
Future graduates, he said, will be placed at regional hospitals countrywide where the ministry intends to place acute-care beds for persons in need of treatment.