(Jamaica Observer) Dr Aggrey Irons, the president of the Medical Association of Jamaica, believes many Jamaicans are suffering from mental illnesses brought on by the country’s high crime rate.
Speaking Friday at a Mental Health Day symposium at the Alhambra Inn in Kingston, Irons said that Jamaica’s reluctance to directly address mental illnesses caused by crime was only compounding the country’s problems.
“We seem to forget that violence which leads to the absence of peace, something that we live with every day, makes us all anxious,” said Irons. “We pretend that it (crime) doesn’t exist; we continue to grille our doors and lock ourselves away. But violence is one of the principal mental health issues in our country,” noted the psychiatrist, likening Jamaica’s violence to racism, which “continues to fuel madness” worldwide.
“Have we forgotten that our mental health is at its best when we feel national pride, joy, opportunities for peace and prosperity?” he asked.
Irons said that Spanish Town in St Catherine — due to its high crime rate, and the brutality of criminal elements in the parish — has the highest need for mental health care islandwide.
In July, within the space of one week, three persons, including a mother and daughter, were beheaded by gangsters in the tough Spanish Town community of Lauriston. The incidents left residents cowering in fear.
The murders preceded an announcement by the police that a downward trend in major crimes, which started in May 2010, was continuing.
Up to July this year, 511 persons were killed, 334 less than the number recorded for the corresponding period last year. Homicides decreased from 1,682 in 2009 to 1,428 in 2010, police reported.
Said Irons: “Violence makes people full of fear and makes people don’t want to go there and work because there is a problem in doing business. That is the connection in Spanish Town.”
He noted also that while the terms madness, depression, and recession are mainly used by Jamaicans to describe political and economical situations, they can also be used to describe the country’s productivity levels, and the state of its mental health.
He added that while Jamaica has the appropriate legislation, resources and professionals to deal with its mental health issues, the country lacks solidarity.
“What I am calling on us to do is make a personal investment in mental health; an investment of time and energy,” Irons told the symposium that was attended by mental health, human rights, and other stakeholders. “Each and every human being has mental health issues that require urgent investment. We need to address our personal issues before we can attempt to address others,” he said.
Margareta Skold, a World Health Organisation representative to Jamaica; Earl Wright, consultant psychiatrist at the Southern Regional Health Authority; and Doreen Grossett, director of the Public Sector Employee Programme, were also among persons who made presentations at the symposium.
Grossett outlined the crucial role companies’ management and their CEOs need to play in protecting their employees from the harsh implications of poor mental health.
She made mention of one male employee who was on Wednesday saved by his colleagues who broke down the door to a bathroom to prevent him from hanging himself.
“It turned out that this employee had a brain tumour and had gone through 24 hours of pain, and this was his solution to the pain,” she said, noting that the detection of mental health problems at the workplace extends to the protection of the society in general.
