Dear Editor
IN 1984 the World health Organization defined optimal health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” With elections around the corner, The Caribbean Voice urges all political parties to inform the nation about their mental health plans, especially where they stand with respect to the following:

integrating mental health into the physical health care system; establishing psyche wards in every hospital; training all health care workers in basic mental health care; mental health coverage under the NIS; psychologists in all hospitals and counsellors in all schools gatekeepers’ training across Guyana;

addressing agri-poisons suicide; domestic violence units in all police stations;
suicide and domestic violence training for all police officers; safe houses in all regions;
laws to try abusers even when victims refuse to press charges and/or to testify; the establishment of detox rehab programmes in the public health sector, accessible in every region; establishing a registry of sex offenders; raising the age of consent to 18 years;

decriminalising suicide; across-the-board support network for abused victims and suicide survivors; creating a mental health app to facilitate Guyanese everywhere to be able to easily and quickly access services and assistance; peer mediation programmes in all high schools; a national programme focusing on men to help address domestic violence;

incorporating mental health, including suicide, all forms of abuse, self esteem, coping skills in the Family and Health curriculum and have this curriculum as part of the overall curricula in every school, handled by appropriately trained teachers; establishing special education teachers and classes in all schools;

making all public buildings accessible by the disabled; early intervention programmes in all schools to screen for mental health and learning disabilities; psycho-social support for all teachers, health care workers and police officers; inclusion of mental health in occupational health and safety regulations and training; establishing poison-control centres across Guyana; getting the mentally ill off the streets and into treatment centres; licensing protocols for clinically trained counsellors and regulations to prevent quacks setting themselves up as counselors; government support for NGOs and CSOs offering services in mental health, bereft of political or other unrelated considerations; updating the mental health ordinance of 1930; a national campaign to eliminate the stigma around  mental health;

making rape a non-bailable offence; getting all child workers off the ‘jobs’ and into schools;
making it mandatory for all convicted abusers to report to the closest police station on a monthly basis;

mandatory psychological evaluation for all mentally ill, whether actual or perceived, who appear before the courts; establishing a mechanism making it easy for abused victims to report to magistrates and judges, if police do not take their complaints, do not act on complaints quickly or ridicule them when they go to report abuse; creating and passing legislation to protect the elderly from abuse and make detection of elder abuse and law enforcement a priority; establishing a viable network of support nationally for caregivers for the mentally ill and the disabled.

Last year a Lancet Commission report on mental health said that mental disorders are on the rise in every country in the world and will cost the global economy $16 trillion by 2030. While the actual figures are not available for Guyana, there is no doubt that a more caring society will be a less violent and more productive society and with oil money geared to transform our nation, future governments must entrench mental health care at all levels in all plans, programmes and policies.
Sincerely
The Caribbean Voice