Mental Health Issues To Be Addressed
Charlestown, Nevis
June 04, 2013
The Nevis Island Administration (NIA) has announced plans to undertake shortly, projects they believe are important to Nevis. The disclosure came from Premier of Nevis Hon. Vance Amory on May 31, 2013.
Mr. Amory who was at the time speaking to the Department of Information, stated that the projects were related to Government House at Bath Plain, the Alexandra Hospital’s Laboratory and the mentally ill.
“We are looking certainly at putting on stream, within the next couple of months, two projects which we think are important to Nevis and one such project is the rehabilitation of the Government House which has been left in a serious state of disrepair over the last 6-7 years.
“Also, we are putting plans together for the rehabilitation of two buildings which were used one for education development and latterly for the Solid Waste Management Authority which has been left unoccupied and the other building which was used by the Department of Community Affairs. Both buildings would form part of a development on that plot of land near the Hospital, to accommodate health facility and also to provide a facility, we believe, will accommodate some of the mentally ill patients, who are clearly now neglected or only treated at home and we see them wondering around the place,” he said.
According to Mr. Amory, the NIA had to take hold of the community and focus on the mental health of the people of Nevis. He also spoke to another health related project that would enhance the delivery of health services at the Hospital.
“We are also looking at the construction of a new laboratory for the testing and support of the diagnosis, which is required by our hospital to better serve our people and we will give more information on this as time goes on,” he said.
The Premier further noted, that the Administration was of the view that the health services on Nevis had somewhat declined and there was the need to restore it.
“We feel that health services seem to have made a bit of a set back and we need now to revamp the health services and it is important that we do so, through a strategic development of the physical facilities which will support the actual delivery of health services to our people,” he said.