UNICEF Country Representative for Guyana and Suriname, Nicholas Pron said Guyana is making significant strides in fostering good mental health and well-being among the population.
In his address at the 3rd Annual Mental Health and Well-Being Conference at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC) today, the UNICEF Representative said Guyana has implemented a series of programmes and projects aimed at tackling mental health.
“Guyana is definitely on the right track to tackling mental health and wellbeing at the early onset, at the school level. And acting early is one of the best ways to tackle poor mental health,” Prone said.
He said together with UNICEF and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the Government of Guyana has rolled out a number of school-based programmes, targeting children and adolescents.
“This year, we have invested in several initiatives to help children realise their rights to good mental health, and wellbeing in Guyana. In collaboration with PAHO/WHO and the Ministry of Health, we launched a joint programme on mental health and psychosocial wellbeing and the development of children and adolescents, and Guyana is actually, one of the pilot countries of this global initiative,” Pron pointed out.
Last October, the Government, through the Ministry of Health’s Adolescent Health Unit and with support from UNICEF, launched the ‘Let’s Talk Green Bench’ initiative in schools, which is aimed at promoting mental health and well-being among children and adolescents.
UNICEF is also partnering with the University of Guyana to roll out a number of programmes.
Pron said come next year, UNICEF will be gathering available data to support the development of a comprehensive adolescent mental health plan which will be used to guide the implementation of further interventions, adding that these programmes are critical to achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Advisor to the Minister of Health, Dr Leslie Ramsammy said while the country’s mental health budget remains relatively small, it has grown over the years. He said the Government has been injecting funds into programmes under various Ministries to address mental health related issues.
“For the first time there are measurable amount of numbers of social workers in school. We are not where we want to be but for the first time, we have that,” Dr Ramsammy said.
Dr Ramsammy, who is a former Health Minister, said after more than two decades, Guyana passed a modern Mental Health Protection and Promotion Law, prioritizing the rights of mental health patients in Guyana in 2022.
“Guyana was able, after 20 years drafting exercise, to introduce a new Mental Health legislation that in fact promotes community based mental health approach; that approach mental wellness, and that downplayed and removed institutionalization as the major mental health approach. The law was also complemented with another one, which is the Suicide Prevention Act, which decriminalized suicide,” he said.
The Mental Health Protection and Promotion Bill repealed the Mental Health Ordinances of 1930.
Over the next three days, the conference will see Health experts discuss mental health and wellbeing with the hope of influencing local policies on the matter.
The conference has been organised by the Ministry of Health, the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), the University of Guyana and Columbia University.
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