Tufton to lead campaign to change Bellevue Hospital stigma

Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton has committed to undertaking a robust public awareness campaign aimed at reducing the stigma surrounding mental health issues.

Tufton said the campaign would also target the widespread negative symbolism associated with the Bellevue Hospital, the country’s foremost mental health facility.

This disclosure came during last Wednesday’s annual patients’ banquet at the east Kingston hospital, where the minister delivered the keynote address. He said that as a society, Jamaicans tend to view the Windward Road institution as a sort of ‘no man’s land’.

“The rest of society stays far from it, avoids it. ASnd tragically, and unfortunately, even with cases when those very individuals must, and should, identity with it because they know or are related to someone who is served by the institution, they still stay away. That’s why we have the (problem with) abandonment and the infirmed, because people stay far away. It’s not a good thing, and so if we don’t make a special effort, oftentimes you must feel lonely, except for the family that you have here – the board and the staff,” he told residents.

”We in government want to change that … . We not just want to change it, we have to change it,” he insisted.

The minister of health and wellness said that many of the people who say bad things about those who are treated at the facility also suffer from a lot of the very same mental health issues.

“I see the stats, I look at the research. The reality is that mental health challenges in our society today affects far more people than we would like to accept and recognise, and there is no scorn that should be associated or applied with a mental health challenge,” he argued.

“Depression, anxiety, schizophrenia; and some who don’t allow themselves to be treated, they suffer in silence because they are afraid of stigma. They are afraid of the very impression that they have of you and the institution, that others will now have that of them,” Tufton added.

Consequently, the health minister gave an undertaking to lead the charge in changing the stigma surrounding the island’s sole mental health hospital.

“As a society, we need to come to terms that mental health issues are not only about people in an institution. It’s about people in the corporate office, about people on the factory floor. It’s about people who clean the bathroom, because that is life. That’s the nature of life and the associated challenges that we face.

“So my appeal here is not just about you (Bellevue residents). In fact, I want you to help me to change that perception by helping to show that in a sense, you have been more fortunate to get help; but you have also been more bold to seek help and to be willing to get help,” Tufton urged.