Health Minister, Dr. Frank Anthony, has hailed Guyana’s collaborative approach in tackling mental health issues, including suicide.
Guyana was recorded as having the highest suicide rate in the world by the World Health Organisation in 2014, and has since made significant strides in lowering that rate.
“This is not a Ministry of Health problem, this is a societal problem, and if we are going to deal with it then all of us would have to have to work together to reduce the amount of cases of persons attempting suicide, or for that matter we would like to see no one in this country actually commiting suicide,” Dr. Anthony said during the launch of the National Mental Health initiatives on Wednesday.
He noted that the government recognised the need for direct focus on suicide prevention.
“Over the last couple of years, because of the president’s commitment to mental health, you would have seen Guyana making some rapid steps in changing the outlook for mental health. So, one of the big changes that we’ve made is to look at our legislation. Our laws were dated to 1934…so we were happy to be able to change the law. We now have a new Mental Health Act,” Dr. Anthony stated.
He added that a new Mental Health Action Plan was developed in collaboration with the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), which contains clear objectives, as well as a suicide prevention multi-stakeholder commission, where stakeholders are working to educate the public about suicide prevention.
“The government has been giving the commission a subvention so that they can do their work. And hopefully with other private sector partners, they can work with these various initiatives so that we can expand them,” he indicated.
The Health Minister further stated that the government has been working with some of its partners at the level of the ministry to undertake other initiatives, like the Gatekeepers Training.
“Because we recognise if we have persons in the community that are trained then they would be the first place where they can intervene and help people, and I think over the last year, in collaboration with funding from Canada and IDRF [International Development and Relief Foundation], we have been able to reach out to close to 900 gatekeepers around the country and train them. So we’re getting feedback from them and then the unit at the Ministry of Health would be able to respond more appropriately,” he said.
