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Talk insufficient on mentally ill

Published:Monday | February 22, 2010 | 12:00 AM

THE EDITOR, Sir:

Permit me to use this medium to ask the powers that be to get persons who are mentally challenged off our busy streets. Why should they be allowed to roam the busy thoroughfare and rub shoulders with normal individuals?

Our streets are crowded daily with students traversing to and from school and no one knows when a mentally ill person can just become boisterous. I am speaking in light of that constable who spent the last week of his life on a life-support machine at the Kingston Public hospital after suffering such a massive blow from someone who is mentally ill, resulting in his passing.

How many more of us will experience such atrocity before something is done? If they are placed in homes, then due diligence should be taken to ensure that they are not privileged to roam our streets. How many more will have to go before the powers that be speak out? Extending sympathy to colleagues, families and friends when things like these happen is certainly not enough get these people off the streets and have them cared for properly

I am, etc.,

Rose Graham

May Pen

rosegrathom@yahoo.com