Historically, the main function of the Mental Health Centre (MHC) of St. Vincent and the Grenadines was to offer mental health services.
MHC has branched out into other areas of service. MHC currently concentrates resources on the indigent and the homeless with chronic mental disorders.
According to Dr. Karen Providence Registrar in Psychiatry attached to the Mental Health Centre, there are patients who can be managed in the community but having no constant social, family, or community support system, these patients would remained at the institution, even when discharged.
Dr. Providence added that the institution also have many elderly patients which it provide basic nursing home services for.
Dr. Providence noted that there is no one cause of mental illness, she said that various factors can predispose someone to having or developing a mental illness, however most of the male admissions to the Mental Health Centre are as a result of drug abuse.
Dr. Providence was a panelist on last evening’s Police “On the Beat” programmed on NBC Radio.
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