The Ministry of Health is focusing on improving services at the National Psychiatric Hospital in Berbice, according to Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony.
“We have a new psychiatrist that has been relocated to the National Psychiatric Hospital. We have adequate staff at the institution, in addition to the nursing staff we have psychiatric aides that are working there. We have more than 70 psychiatric aides that would assist patients on a 24-hour basis. So, we have been constantly working to improve the facilities and the services that we offer at the psychiatric hospital,” Dr Anthony said, according to the Department of Public Information (DPI).
The government is now working with patients to see less institutionalisation, one of the provisions in the new Mental Health Legislation.
“One of the active programmes that we are working on is to de-institutionalise the patients that we have there because once they are through with their acute phase then they can be managed closer to home,” the health minister said, according to DPI.
This would require less staff to be present at the hospital itself, but persons can be managed by returning home and attending regular clinics for medication, DPI added.
