Submitted by the People’s Democratic Congress (PDC)
Over the course of several years, and especially within very recent times, in Barbados, the PDC has been agonizing over the lack of a national role by mental health professionals, like psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric nurses, etc. in the educating and informing of the Barbadian public on many mental health psychological issues and problems affecting it, or some sections of it, as a significant consequence of Barbados becoming an increasingly specialized complex dynamic 21st Century society, or as some would say, an increasingly chaotic bedlamic one.
Moreso, in as much as we in the PDC really do know that psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric nurses, do perform their respective professional roles and functions in private and public practice, and would have individually undergone years of training and tutelage before becoming mental health professionals, we are yet to properly know why they are NOT being regularly heard or seen by ourselves – and we suppose by many others in this society – giving enough information and advice in the mass media, or in public lectures, in public seminars, or through reading or video material – to general public on a variety of mental health psychological issues and problems that fall well within their respective professional domains.
Indeed, this absence of public participation by such mental health professionals is quite unlike their counterparts in the physical health arena, unlike lawyers, teachers/educators, trade unionists, police, parliamentarians, etc., who altogether though are often heard seen by our party and so many other people giving information pointers advice, in so many public communicative deliberative forums and channels, on so many public social issues and problems that fall to their respective professional domains.
Nevertheless, let it be made clear that we are not just raising these points in this article mainly as a result of the many different causes – good and bad – of many particular phenomena that are taking place within a constantly evolving, internationalizing Barbadian society, and also as a result of all things that such a society would definitely carry with it, and which would therefore have consonant effects upon the minds and mental states and conditions and ultimately on the behaviours of so many different people in this society, but too we are raising these points because of the fact that in recent times we have been observing a fair deal of unprecedented, largely unforeseen tragic traumatic events that have been happening in our country, and which would have been therefore having very profound lasting effects on the collective psyches and on the resulting behavioural patterns of many of our people.
So, we are not just only talking about the effects on the minds and resulting behaviours of the majority of landless, impoverished persons in Barbados of many rich foreigners buying up many of our lands spaces in Barbados, esp. those lands spaces which have had golf courses, condos, villas, built on them and such like; or only about the harmful impressions that have been made on the minds of many people in Barbados and that therefore have had some consequences for changes in the behaviours of some of these people, as a result of much negative debased content on the internet and multi-channel television; or only about the fears and anxieties of many Barbadians actually experiencing terrorist attacks committed on foreign territory, say, in the USA, or the UK, Europe, by some radical Islamic group, or even on airplanes going to or from such places by the same, or worse yet some number of terror attacks being carried out here in Barbados by some militant group with international connections, but we are also clearly talking about events like the Joes River accident, the Arch Cot cave-in tragedy, the Prime Minister’s illness, the Bank Hall Main Road and Tudor Street terror attacks, etc.
Already it is clear that many people in Barbados have customarily rationally rightly feared so many things happening to them and to others in this country. Hence, they fear themselves and some others being the subject of robberies, theft, murder; they rationally rightly fear themselves and some others being seriously injured dying in motor vehicles accidents; they rightly fear themselves and some others losing their jobs or businesses in this material financial depression that we are now experiencing in Barbados; or their and their relatives friends losing their properties to financial institutions in this said depression; they are fearful of losing themselves and relatives, loved ones, and friends to cancer, heart disease, hypotension, diabetes, etc.; they are anxious about not losing their spouses partners to other persons who would be in sexual romantic relationships with them; and they fear abusive relationships with others – whether physical, emotional, sexual, etc, etc…
Thus, such fears and anxieties as are experienced during the normal courses of life in this country are bound to increase when hitherto not seen horrifying ghastly multiple death mass killing mass terrorist events do occur in the country, or even outside of it. These latter mentioned events do and will always have the capacity to create greater levels of undue stress, depression, psychoses, nervous breakdowns, and other physical, mental and neurological diseases among the Barbadian population, and will always have too adverse implications for the proper delivery of mental neurological and physical health care within the wider health care system and too for the social financial well being and proper functioning of families, social clubs, communities, businesses, government at this juncture in our country’s development. Indeed, we did observe in cases where in the immediate aftermath of the Arch Cot cave-in in Brittons Hill how many people in the country had been gone frantic and hysterical, wondering if their homes were built over caves and therefore themselves fearing possible cave-ins and deaths too.
Also, we have had the opportunity now to realize that so many many persons have been so psychologically affected by the Prime Minister sudden illness (at the point in time of submitting this article yet to be publicly disclosed however), that they have decided to lessen their business and study and work loads for fear that too much stress on their part can lead to death or serious illness.
So, where are our mental health people amidst all of these very depressing situations?? At what times are they giving advice to calm the nerves of many of our people when these tragedies occur?? And where are the bulletins by them that are released for the benefit of many young females or any other persons who would be fearful that a similar thing can happen to them as like what happened on Bank Hall Main Road and Tudor Street?
While it is true that the importance of mental health might be underestimated by some people in the country, that the mental health budget of government might be inadequate as a proportion of all health expenditures, and too while the number of mental health professionals may be very small per every thousand persons of the entire population in Barbados (a glaring absence of mental health statistics from Barbados on the internet), it does not mean that just the politics, the sociology, the economics, the legal dimensions of these changes and events within society should be analysed and presented by the relevant professionals in those respective fields , and that the psychological/psychiatric/neurological aspects/effects of these changes and events should NOT to be seriously diagnosed explored, explained/ presented by relevant mental health professionals ( far more) for the benefits of the understanding and consolation of the victims ( if alive), their families, their communities, and the entire Barbados.
Finally, in this midst of these social political material and financial changes, and these life devouring tragedies, at the personal, familial, or wider social levels, the call must be made by the PDC to all mental health professionals – psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric nurses, emotional counsellors, to make a far greater national contribution to the mental psychological social well being of our people the nation via their making contributions to the daily call in programs, via their facilitating specially sponsored/ paid for mental health counselling programs on the radio and television, the holding of mental health seminars clinics, blog contributions, and not just when such horrendous tragedies occur, but on an ongoing basis, so as to make the people of Barbados and visitors feel more assured, calm, and settled through out their life times.
P.S. it seems that the Sunday edition of Getting down to BrassTacks, Sunday, 12 September, had been dedicated to dealing with the psychological emotional effects of these particular tragedies and events – such as the one at Campus Trendz on Tudor Street – on many individuals and groups of people in Barbados. That was great!!
We oblige.
The blogmaster invites you to join the discussion.