My son, who is mentally ill, has been attending the Chaguanas Psychiatric Clinic for the past seven years. From our first visit the staff has always been helpful and willing to assist when a crisis takes place. It takes a while for the mentally ill to trust people and open up. I commend them on the hard work on helping my son in leading a normal life. Now I learnt that psychiatric social worker Khan, mental health officers Dookie and Anand are being split up and moved to other areas. These public officers have brought the Chaguanas clinic from a leaking wooden shed to the air-conditioned building it is today. There will be nobody remaining that knows and relates to patients well.
Apparently some technocrat at the North West Regional Health Authority wakes up one morning and decides to move all the community mental health staff with only three days notice. Does anyone think about the patients and relatives? The mentally ill are constantly treated like second class citizens, with no drugs in the pharmacy, no ambulance and whenever there appears a light shining on their lives, someone comes to extinguish that light. I appeal to the new Minister of Health to keep the staff in Chaguanas that delivers an excellent service and keeps patients out of hospital.
Eric Michea
