Gov’t Continues to Implement Strategies Promoting Mental Wellness

The Ministry of Health and Wellness continues to implement several strategies that promote sound mental wellbeing and address the needs of persons requiring support.

Portfolio Minister, Dr. the Hon. Christopher Tufton, highlighted this while delivering remarks during the opening session for the 15th annual World Suicide Prevention Day Seminar at the Terra Nova All Suite Hotel in St. Andrew on Friday (September 8).

The seminar was organised by Choose Life International (CLI).

“We, in the Ministry, have been doing a few things. We have our suicide prevention helpline – 888-NEW-LIFE, [and] we have partnered with groups like [CLI], and others, towards giving support,” Dr. Tufton informed.

“We have launched Problem Management Plus (PM+), which is training community leaders to assess and assist community members to solve community problems, because it starts with really a basic issue that you must be able to recognise and then provide support. Listening is a big one… some people just want somebody to talk to, even before you elevate it to the level of the consultant psychiatrist or, worse, institutionalisation,” he added.

The Minister also noted that the #DoYourShare and the Wellness Bench Campaigns have been launched in schools.

The #DoYourShare campaign aims to provide the platform for people to share their stories and experiences of mental health disorders as well as access resources, while reducing stigma.

Dr. Tufton advised that over 500 administrators have been trained to work with students.

“All of this is geared towards trying to promote a very broad-based approach to mental wellness because of a recognition of how difficult and challenging our society is today for individual coping mechanisms,” the Minister stated.

He said the COVID-19 pandemic experience has reinforced concerns around mental health.

“What is going to have to be a standard operating procedure, is a protocol of empathy of understanding and, indeed, the willingness for outreach and to share your experiences in a way that encourages others,” he said.

Meanwhile, Dr. Tufton informed that data for 2021 and 2022 indicate an increase in the number of persons in Jamaica committing suicide.

“In 2022, a total of 64 persons committed suicide in Jamaica. In 2021, it was 51. Up to this point of 2023, [some] 52 persons have committed suicide. With a number of months to go, what we have to conclude is [that] there is a trend going in the wrong direction,” he shared.

The Minister said that of the numbers, 90 per cent were males, with the youngest age range between 10 and 20 years old and the oldest being over 70.

“The reality of our situation does suggest that from a mental health perspective, we are a society in distress and to me there is no greater manifestation of that than the COVID experience,” Dr. Tufton posited.

He maintained that consequent on the pandemic experience, “we must embrace an “all of society” approach towards firstly recognising mental health as perhaps the number one challenge of humanity today.”

“Hopefully, in having that recognition, we will also recognise that it is no discriminator of person, class or creed,” Dr. Tufton pointed out.

CLI Founder, Dr. Donovan Thomas, said his organisation will continue to play its role in helping people to choose life.

World Suicide Prevention Day is observed each year on September 10.

It is intended to heighten focus on suicide prevention as a public health priority and urge action among organisations and well-thinking individuals to strengthen this intervention.