It is costing approximately $21 million annually to procure psychiatric medication to treat scores of children in State-run facilities who are suffering from untold mental trauma often because of abuse.

“Our medication bill is very high. There are many that we have to treat with medication, [and] mental health drugs are not those you can necessarily get at Drug-Serv (public-funded pharmacies), so you have to get them from regular pharmacies,” acting chief executive officer of the Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA) Michelle Harvey told the Jamaica Observer on Thursday morning.

Harvey, who was speaking with the newspaper following the handing-over ceremony for the newly constructed therapeutic treatment centre on the grounds of Maxfield Park Children’s Home in St Andrew, said medication for a single child can cost up to $56,000 per month.

“So, one child might get a suite of medication. They are being medicated for mental issues, depression and other things that the psychiatrists find,” she said, noting that outside of the bill for medication the children also have sessions with psychologists and psychiatrists.

In the meantime, Harvey said when the newly opened centre — which is the first of its kind in the English-speaking Caribbean — is fully operational within a month, the CPFSA will be pulling in the more severe cases from facilities islandwide to continue in-depth mental health interventions.

Harvey said a group of boys from several facilities are on the priority list to be seen first by the mental health professionals staffing the entity.

“Right now we have some boys we need to get started with in particular. I don’t have the numbers offhand, but they are in various facilities around the island (there are 59 facilities around the island, eight of which are operated by the CPFSA). I am thinking of at least one facility that we know has at least 10 that we need to do some serious interventions with — different age groups,” the acting CPFSA head disclosed.

“So once we can get to assess and see what therapy will help them we have behaviour modification programmes that have been designed,” Harvey told the Observer.

Noting that the Maxfield Park centre is not a dormitory facility, Harvey said if, upon completion of the assessment, a residential stay is necessary the wards will be assigned to Windsor Childcare Facility in St Ann, where a second treatment centre has been constructed complete with lodging.

“The staff is trained and waiting,” she said, noting that it will be opened shortly.

In the meantime, Harvey said of the 4,500 children in State care in the island “most of them would need to access the therapeutic treatment facility at some point in time”.

“They are in children’s homes, they are in foster care, they are in the family reintegration programme, but we have to look at the ones who have come in for behavioural challenges,” she told the Observer.

“Here we will have them assessed,” she said. “What we note is that [in] many of them it [behavioural issues] is also linked with sexual abuse. So you find that if they were abused when they are young — it starts when they are around 12 years of age and puberty hits and everything goes haywire,” Harvey said.

According to statistics shared with the Observer in November last year by a trusted child and adolescent psychiatrist who has worked in the Government childcare system, there are more than 800,000 children in the island’s 14 parishes, nearly 120,000 of whom may have a mental disorder, with 40,000 suffering from a severe mental disorder.

Child guidance clinics islandwide, of which there are 20, tend to 3,500 Jamaican children, but experts believe that more than 95 per cent — or just over 110,000 children and adolescents with mental disorders — are slipping through the cracks and not benefiting from the Government-provided services.

According to the psychiatrist, there are 30,000 children in the Kingston and St Andrew region alone who need psychosocial intervention. It would take at least another five to seven clinics to provide services to even two-thirds of them.

Research shared with the Observer by the child and adolescent psychiatrist shows that in the United States two out of three such children do not receive help, in Canada four out of five children do not get assistance, while in Jamaica 19 out of 20 children suffer the same fate.

The treatment centre is predominantly for children in the care of the State; however, other children will be able to access the services.

Cabinet, in 2021, gave approval for the construction of the $200-million facility, the contract for which was awarded to Alfrasure Structures and Roofing Limited. The scope of work involved the building of a 650m2 model therapeutic care centre for children “with a series of rooms for consultation, observation, operations and administration”.

On Thursday, Dr Wayne Henry, chairman of the Jamaica Social Investment Fund, which managed the project, said the centre was well-needed as for decades a dedicated facility to provide services to emotionally disturbed children has been lacking.