ROSE HALL, St James — Chief executive officer of Bellevue Hospital Suzette Buchanan is looking to the diaspora for help in dealing with Jamaica’s mental health challenges and already she has piqued interest.

Addressing a plenary discussion on the diaspora’s role in transforming healthcare for improved national well-being during the 11th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference held at the Montego Bay Convention Centre in St James, on Tuesday, Buchanan revealed that since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020/21 Bellevue has seen a sustained influx of patients seeking mental health-related treatment.

“COVID-19 was a lesson for all of us. And what we saw coming out of COVID-19 was more persons turning up to the emergency room, and since COVID-19, that has not changed,” said Buchanan.

She was responding to the moderator of the plenary discussion who pointed out that in the aftermath of public health-care emergencies and natural disasters like Hurricane Melissa, mental health needs increase significantly.

The moderator questioned how Bellevue has been coping, and what preparations have been taken to respond to future crises while maintaining quality care and continuity of service.

Further pointing to the increase in the number of people in Jamaica facing mental health challenges, Buchanan argued that this issue should be part of the curriculum used in schools to ignite awareness.

“We have to teach conflict resolution [and] we have to also look at emotional intelligence as we cannot wait until the tree grows to bend the tree, we have to bend it when it is young. Let us start with the little ones,” argued Buchanan as she pointed out that mental health conditions have a way of manifesting in the adolescent years.

Buchanan argued that the diaspora can support this awareness initiative through telepsychiatry and telemedicine.

Telepsychiatry is a subset of telemedicine that remotely delivers mental health care — including psychiatric evaluations, therapy, and medication management — by using secure video conferencing, phone calls, or digital messaging. Meanwhile, telemedicine is the remote delivery of health-care services using telecommunications technology.

Responding to Buchanan, executive director of the National Healthcare Enhancement Foundation (NHEF) Courtney Cephas, who was also on the panel, said he is currently working to implement the use of these technologies.

“I am working with her [Buchanan] on an initiative that is being supported by [the] diaspora, a tele-mental health hub that can reach out across the country into schools, into health centres, hospitals, into business places, [and] into our correctional facilities,” said Cephas.

“That initiative is also a big possibility for a lot of our talents, our clinicians outside in that area, that they can help us provide service through that hub,” added the executive director.

He pointed out that this will have to be worked on in terms of clinical protocols, policy, and procedures, “but the discussions with [the] diaspora that I am having are that there is a strong possibility for them anywhere in the world to give service without even coming back to [the] country”.