Psychiatric looking to community

GOVERNMENT IS SEEKING to drastically scale back the operations of the Psychiatric Hospital.
However, senior consultant psychiatrist with the Ministry of Health, Dr Ermine Belle, said yesterday this was still a long way off.
“One of the things we are trying to address is mental health reform from the point of view of making mental health treatment more accessible in the community so people are not removed and put into the Psychiatric Hospital, which is a place of stigma, even more so than mental health in general.
“The aim is to get rid of the Psychiatric Hospital. I know it is an aim we will probably never achieve although there are some places in the world which have achieved this. We are a long way away from that but we are working towards reducing the numbers every day.