In an effort to strengthen mental health care and support in Saint Lucia, the Ministry of Health, Wellness and Elderly Affairs recently launched a six-week course, “Mental Health Action Gap Training Programme (MH Gap),” for health professionals, facilitators and senior officials from the ministry.Ministry of Health, Wellness and Elderly Affairs Strengthens Capacity to Deliver Mental Health Care and Support island wide
In an effort to strengthen mental health care and support in Saint Lucia, the Ministry of Health, Wellness and Elderly Affairs recently launched a six-week course, “Mental Health Action Gap Training Programme (MH Gap),” for health professionals, facilitators and senior officials from the ministry.
The training is expected to bring together these professionals to place greater focus on mental health. The MH Gap training aims to empower healthcare workers with the knowledge and practical tools to identify, manage, and refer individuals living with mental health conditions both within the workplace and the wider community.
Chief Nursing Officer Kerthney Surage, who delivered the remarks at opening ceremony of the Mental Health Action Gap Training Programme (MH Gap) underscored the significance of prioritizing mental health support for healthcare workers. “Mental Health is an integral part of overall health and I am pleased that the Ministry of Health has prioritized mental health of health care workers through funding from the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) under “building capacity in health sector to respond to corona virus 2019 project.” Under this project, we will be training about 100 healthcare workers in MH Gap. You are the first cohort of 50 participants. This training will empower you to provide high quality care, reduce stigma and improve healthcare outcomes for your colleagues’ individuals and families.”
The training is being facilitated by experts in Mental Health Care, including Dr. R.G. Swamy, a psychiatrist and consultant. In his address, he emphasized the importance of self-care among health professionals. “Before starting any of this essential care and practice we should, we have to do essential self-care; it is very important. Once we know how to take care of ourselves, we know how to take care of others. We’re all in the health field, we all go through that stress, burn out, struggle, anxiety, trauma, depression which we all talk about. I’ll be very happy if you can have these interactions much more. Maybe for some reason it may not be possible, but I still encourage, we should meet like this and talk about, it can be very educative, we all learn from each other and this will be very helpful.”
The island’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Sharon Belmar-George, speaking to the participants of the MH Gap training, stressed on the importance of early intervention and capacity-building in the area of mental health care. “The MH Gap training course is going to allow us as clinical
persons like Dr. Swamy said, to assist ourselves and our family first and it will also assist in the early diagnosis of the mental health conditions in the patients that we see and the patients that we treat. So based on the gaps that we have seen, the increases in depression, in anxiety. We also note increases in substance use and abuse especially in young women which is new, generally we would see substance abuse and misuse example the vaping that we’re seeing in our young women of reproductive age as well. So there are things which as a health system we have to plan for and a big part of it is strengthening our human resources for health, our workforce to be able to identify and also manage.”
The MH Gap Training Programme covers essential topics such as assessment, diagnosis, and management of mental health conditions, while also emphasizing communication skills and cultural sensitivity.
With participants ranging from Environmental Health Officers to nurses, doctors, pharmacists, dentists, health educators, and nutrition officers, the training is a critical step towards building a more confident, competent, and compassionate health workforce well-equipped to respond to the growing mental health needs of Saint Lucia.
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