THE THEME FOR this year’s World Mental Health Day is Dignity in Mental Health and that theme played out today at the island’s lone Psychiatric Hospital.
About 400 students from both primary and secondary schools joined other members of the public at the Black Rock, St Michael facility for an open day and health fair.
Senior nursing officer Denise Nicholls said that the hospital wanted to reduce discrimination against the mentally ill and aid in promoting dignity.
“We have opened the hospital to persons from on the outside so that they can get a chance to mingle with our patients and see that a mental illness is a disability like any other,” she said.
Assistant in the quality assurance department Yvette Forde said they are still battling with the attached stigma.
They are hopeful, however, that the initiative will curb judgment towards patients.
World Mental Health Day will be officially observed tomorrow. (MR)