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Infirmaries to get psychiatric nurse aides amid surging mental cases

Published:Thursday | February 16, 2023 | 1:09 AMAlbert Ferguson/Gleaner Writer

WESTERN BUREAU:

The Government will be taking steps to employ mental-health professionals to treat several cases that have developed in infirmaries across the island.

Local Government and Rural Development Minister Desmond McKenzie said that the move is necessary given that the increase in the number of mental-health cases in society is being mirrored on the wards of the nation’s infirmaries.

He said there is a need for the State to respond and provide the necessary care to restore stability and dignity among those persons.

McKenzie noted that while COVID-19 containment measures implemented at the infirmaries were generally successful, including the suspension of visitations, they have created mental stress among residents.

“ … Mental health is a serious problem because not all the persons who work within the facilities are trained to deal with mental-health cases,” McKenzie said.

“I remember going to an infirmary, and I saw where they had to lock away three or four of the residents in an area by themselves because of the mental-health challenge that they posed,” the minister said on Wednesday during a ceremony for the opening of a $45-million male ward at the St James Infirmary. The construction was funded by the National Housing Trust.

The new ward boasts significantly improved living conditions, a nurses’ station, bathrooms, a kitchen and other amenities. It complements previous renovation work undertaken at the institution and is equipped to accommodate 40 males.

Restriction to be lifted

McKenzie said that as of April 1, the visitation restriction for infirmaries will be lifted, and people will be able to visit their loved ones and friends again in a bid to ease some of the mental stress.

“We need to breathe new life into the infirmaries,” McKenzie argued.

He said that a few residents in golden age homes in the Corporate Area attended a luncheon for senior citizens in December and the experience was memorable.

“It was like Christmas to those residents because they had a chance to come out of the infirmary,” McKenzie noted. “We are opening the infirmaries and we are going to be allowing visits, but I want to say to you that we must still maintain and observe the protocols that we put in just as if COVID is still around.”

At the height of the pandemic, the Government had suspended visits, admission of new residents, and field trips for residents to mitigate the spread of the virus.

albert.ferguson@gleanerjm.com