MAY PEN, Clarendon – The Clarendon health department is calling for additional mental health professionals to adequately care for the over 7,000 mentally challenged people in the parish – half of whom are schizophrenic – who visited mental health clinics in the parish for treatment last year.

Police superintendent in charge of Clarendon, Radcliffe Lewis, is also calling on government to train police officers as certified mental health professionals to alleviate the shortfall in the system. The police say mentally ill persons living on the streets of May Pen often damage property and terrorise pedestrians.

“In 2006 we had 7,009 visits to mental health clinics for treatment, half of them were for schizophrenia, compared to 6,062 persons who were treated in 2005,” Clarendon Medical Officer of Health Dr Sonia Copeland told health workers attending the Clarendon Health Services Review at St Gabriel’s Anglican Church Hall last Wednesday.

Half of the persons – 3,659 – were diagnosed with schizophrenia, an increase of 1,140. Some 1,778 were treated for maniac depressive disorder; 991 were treated for substance abuse – an increase of 8,16l; while the remaining 113 were diagnosed with disorders of childhood /adolescence. Dr Copeland said there was a shortage of mental health workers to handle the increasing number of mental health cases.

“We need more mental health professionals to work … to administer the care they (mentally ill) need,” Dr Copeland said. “We don’t have a psychiatrist based at May Pen(Hospital). We need mental health officers including psychologists and an emergency crisis outreach team to go out in the field and treat mental health people, to see that they take their medication and follow-up with the necessary mental care they desperately need.”

Superintendent Lewis confirmed the escalating number of the mentally ill, and explained that under the law, the police cannot make arrests unless these persons commit an offence, as the law determined that such persons are sick and need medical care. The duty of the police, he said, is to accompany a mental health worker to remove such persons to a medical institution.

But he outlined a case where in March, he removed a hostile mentally deranged man from Manchester Street to May Pen Hospital, but the nurse refused to accept the sick man.

Meanwhile, Ministry of Health consultant psychiatrist Dr Earl Wright endorsed the call for police training, saying that each police officer, on graduation, should have some training and an understanding of mental health illness and how to handle the problem.