Latest update April 17th, 2025 8:39 PM
National Psychiatric Hospital remembers oldest living mental health worker
NPH Officials making the presentation to the elderly citizen. His daughter, Mrs La Rose is at extreme right.
Mental Health month concluded on Wednesday with the National Psychiatric Hospital (NPH) honouring and remembering the oldest mental health worker in the country, 97- year- old Percy La Rose, of St Magdalene Street, New Amsterdam.
Several mental health practitioners turned up at the senior citizen’s residence to donate two hampers, one from the Mental Hospital and the other from the Anamayah’s Memorial Hospital on the Corentyne.
Ms Meena Yassin, Acting Food Supervisor of the NPH, stated that they always visit the shut-ins on the last day of mental health month and have chosen Mr. La Rose this year.
His daughter, Marylin La Rose related that her father is not as agile as he wants to be these days and cannot hear well nor can he speak well, but he is well aware of his surroundings and those around him. “About three years ago, he stopped seeing completely due to glaucoma. Because of these defects, he cannot communicate but he is very sensitive and has a very good appetite since he eats anything and everything.”
She added that being a member of the local Anglican Church in the town, he is regularly visited by the priest who administers the Holy Communion at his home.
She added that her father worked for 30 years at the NPH as a mental attendant, equivalent today to a Psychiatric Nurse-Aide, and retired in 1973.
“And at that time, he worked in the Stores and he said in those days the hospital had 800-900 patients because at that time, the kind of treatment was not as it is now…more confinement and subduing of the patients, but now, the treatment is better.”
La Rose mentioned, too, that her father was a very strict person. “If we came home from school after he came home, we had to give him a very good reason as to why we were late from school and he inflicted corporal punishment on us, and it hasn’t killed us.”
La Rose herself was a Midwife and Nurse back in her days. Mr. La Rose also did other odd jobs to take care of his family, including being an upholsterer as well as teaching the patients the art.
“Especially around this time, at Christmastime, he had a lot of work.”
Mr La Rose also worked with his father as a painter on very important projects, including painting Atkinson Field (now Cheddie Jagan Airport), after which he worked as an Office Assistant at Dr Oscar Davis, a dentist, in 1943 in New Amsterdam. La Rose fathered nine children, three of whom are deceased.
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