Contrary to popular belief, everyone who is homeless is not suffering from mental health challenges.
Kemar Saffrey, President of the Barbados Alliance to End Homelessness, said too often this is the perception that the public has and it prevents those homeless persons from getting the mental health treatment or care that they require. He made the comments while taking part in a recently held virtual panel discussion to mark World Mental Health Day 2020, under the theme ‘Your Mental Health Matters, Let’s End the Stigma’.
“If they go to the QEH and they may look a certain way, while they may not have a mental health challenge, they still are stigmatised in that way because they may not dress appropriately and they may smell a certain way. It also affects them going into certain stores... We have seen that over the years and we have tried to address it and we have made headway in that,” he said.
Saffrey also touched on what he believes needs to be done to help ensure that the homeless who have mental health concerns can get the treatment that they require. The president of the Barbados Alliance to End Homelessness is advocating for a taskforce to be established to address the matter, explaining that he has put the proposal to successive governments.
“Many times we have a lot of homeless persons; they are not generally assisted in the way they should ... and while we may offer shelter, and offering counselling and certain services, there is the Psychiatric [Hospital] that has one component; maybe the Welfare [Department] that has one component; Ministry of Health – I think there needs to be greater collaboration between agencies in order to deal with each and every homeless person and each and every person actually that suffers from mental health [challenges]. I find that too many times we are isolated in how we approach it and then we don’t have the impact we need to,” he lamented.
He added, “So we have asked for a national taskforce. We would have written all of the agencies that we think that should be involved, and the door is open to others to be able to come up with strategies, come up with approaches as it relates to helping homeless persons and also helping those with mental health challenges.”
Saffrey said this would prevent duplication of effort and wastage of resources. He made the point while indicating that the Barbados Alliance to End Homelessness’ shelter is big enough that there can be a room allocated for mental health professionals to administer medication to homeless patients.
“We have psychologists and counsellors and all of those that we can provide to keep the person stable and keep their minds a little bit sharp, so that they would know they have to take medication at this particular time... The Psychiatric [Hospital] can come and administer the medication there [and] you have better support for that person. But, as I said, it is too much of each of us doing our own and then we are really affecting the clients more so because we are not working hand in hand,” he stated. (JRT)