PROFESSIONAL health workers who usually work beyond the call of duty even when experiencing personal traumas will soon benefit from a mental health detoxification programme to deal with the stresses that come with their job.

This is according to Senior Psychologist, Balogam Osunbiyi, who spoke to the Guyana Chronicle on the sidelines of a recent mental health forum in New Amsterdam, Berbice.
According to the UK- trained psychologist, senior health officials are in discussion to have a licensing programme for Mental Health First Aid, targeting professionals in the field.
This initiative would ensure health care workers are in a proper state even while facing personal trauma, but are expected to go on with their professional lives.

“We need to pay attention on how to take care of our professional staff from the most junior to the senior. We want to be able to train sufficient number of persons to deal with mental health first aid so that you will have your own internal process as a professional…. You are simply having a mental health detoxification,” he said.

Osunbiyi also announced that between 20 to 25 workers will receive mental health training this month and a week after, a team, including mental health experts, behavioural specialist, psychiatrist and psychologist from the UK, will be training 36 persons, drawn from Regions Three, Five and Six in the management of anxiety and depression.

The training programmes executed in collaboration with the Ministry of Public Health and the National Psychiatric Hospital are aimed at improving mental health care delivery, identifying the forms of mental health and how to help patients manage their respective symptoms.