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The focus should be on mental health

Nov 24, 2015 Editorial, Features / Columnists

In the wake of the most recent death at Kaieteur Falls, people seem to be saying that the waterfalls may be at the root of the problem. So we see that the Ministry of Tourism has closed the falls and we hear of plans to monitor the people who go there on tours.
The truth is that people have been going to the waterfalls ever since Barrington Brown discovered it nearly 150 years ago, in 1870. Before hinterland flights became so prevalent people visited the falls on foot. This was a routine way to visit the splendorous waterfalls.
Scores would talk about travelling to Bartica then continue on along the Bartica-Potaro Road to Kangaruma before journeying up the Potaro River to the foot of the falls at Tukeit. But even before the tourists pork knockers made that trek a common feature.
Indeed people would have died going over the edge of the falls and many such deaths would have gone unreported. Three years ago a pork knocker went over the falls when the engine on his boat failed. He had been drinking. His death did not make the news as much as the young woman who many want to believe is the first jumper from the top of the falls.
Instead of putting all the planned security measures in place, the country should first develop its mental health treatment capacity. While the rest of the world recognizes that depression is a serious problem, Guyana ignores this fact. We do not see depression as a problem and would simply advise the person to take a rest.
And Guyana is a place where depression flourishes. As a poor country people tend to become depressed pretty easily. For one, the more some people work the less they seem able to cope with the needs of daily life. This fuels divorces which in turn fuel depression. Many an individual have failed to cope with these pressures with the result that Guyana has earned the sobriquet of the suicide capital of the world.
The most recent Kaieteur jumper is reported to have been suffering from depression, perhaps sparked by the suicide of her teenage paramour five years earlier. She must have confided in someone since she was not hesitant in posting her views on social media. Yet because we do not readily understand depression and because we are a people who do not set store by mental illness the problem experienced by others are ignored.
Hardly anyone who demonstrated all the signs of suicide has been offered professional help simply because the professional help is not there. And besides, there is a stigma attached to mental illness. While people routinely go to a psychiatrist for help in the developed world we tend to shy away from therapy. If we do seek psychiatric help, we hide to do so for fear of ridicule and criticism.
This may very well explain why there is a paucity of psychiatrists in this country. The former Health Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy had set about training a number of psychiatric nurses to aid in the treatment of mental ailments. He had also talked about training some specialists in the area of psychiatry.
This programme is still underway even as the established psychiatrists are shutting shop either through old age or infirmity. There is one way to maximize the services of the few who are in existence. Government agencies and departments can sponsor group sessions for their employees. During these sessions the most needing of the lot would surface.
As simple as this seems many lives would be saved and many situations averted. For example, this latest case of suicide by jumping off Kaieteur Falls, would have been saved had she been part of the group therapy.
It is time the nation considers embracing psychiatric help. There is no stigma.

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