Coming soon, mental health director

CABINET has approved “with glee” the creation of a National Director for Mental Health, who will advise the minister on policy. “This will change the landscape on how we deal with mental health in TT,” Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh said yesterday at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s.

Cabinet has approved the job description, he said, and now the government will advertise for the position. It will be an initial three-year contract.

Deyalsingh made the announcement in response to a question about mental healthcare in TT, and Good Samaritan Jelani Samuel’s heroic diffusion of a suicide attempt at the Port of Spain General Hospital on Tuesday.

This position should have been created decades ago, Deyalsingh said. Among the new policies the government will introduce be to decentralise mental health treatment from St Ann’s Psychiatric hospital and increase availability within communities. Many mental health patients can work and function in society, he said, which is why decentralisation away from St Ann’s can be more convenient.

“The current model is to have people in St Ann’s for 20 or 30 years. We want to drive centralisation within communities, (allowing patients to be) nearer to their families,” he said.