RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The re­cent tragedy in Princes Town, where Mala Boodram was al­leged­ly beat­en to death by a men­tal­ly ill rel­a­tive, un­der­scores the crit­i­cal need for fam­i­lies to recog­nise warn­ing signs that may pre­cede vi­o­lence in in­di­vid­u­als suf­fer­ing from men­tal ill­ness.

So said for­mer in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor and psy­chi­a­trist Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Dr Deyals­ingh said un­der­stand­ing these trig­ger fac­tors could be the dif­fer­ence be­tween life and death. Ex­press­ing con­do­lences to the be­reaved fam­i­ly, Dr Deyals­ingh said rel­a­tives need­ed to be aware of the dan­ger sig­nals that their loved ones may ex­hib­it.

These can in­clude pac­ing, shout­ing, loss of sleep, sud­den anger, and ver­bal­is­ing or di­rect­ing hate to­wards a spe­cif­ic per­son. “When these signs ap­pear, it’s vi­tal to in­form the clin­ic and get a men­tal health of­fi­cer in­volved im­me­di­ate­ly,” he not­ed.

“This in­ci­dent is par­tic­u­lar­ly heart­break­ing be­cause the vi­o­lence was di­rect­ed at the one per­son who pro­vid­ed un­con­di­tion­al love. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, this is some­thing that psy­chi­a­trists and par­ents of men­tal­ly ill chil­dren dread—when some­one with a men­tal dis­or­der acts out vi­o­lent­ly against those clos­est to them.”

One of the sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges, ac­cord­ing to Deyals­ingh, is that some in­di­vid­u­als with men­tal ill­ness are un­able to recog­nise their con­di­tion.

“They have a brain de­fect and dis­or­der that pre­vents them from re­al­is­ing they are ill. Some may al­so re­sist med­ica­tion be­cause of side ef­fects like drowsi­ness and numb­ness, even though there are now bet­ter med­ica­tions avail­able for con­di­tions like schiz­o­phre­nia,” he said.

He point­ed out that while some pa­tients are in de­nial about their ill­ness, they could de­vel­op para­noid delu­sions that can make them dan­ger­ous to them­selves and oth­ers.

“We try to es­tab­lish a ther­a­peu­tic bond with the pa­tient, their rel­a­tives, and doc­tors to en­sure that they con­tin­ue their med­ica­tion. How­ev­er, it’s not un­com­mon for pa­tients to stop tak­ing their med­i­cine, which in­creas­es the risk of vi­o­lent out­bursts,” he ex­plained.

Prais­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts in pro­vid­ing long-act­ing in­jecta­bles, which are an­tipsy­chot­ic med­ica­tions that can re­main ef­fec­tive in the body for up to six months, Dr Deyals­ingh said, “These med­ica­tions are cru­cial, es­pe­cial­ly for pa­tients prone to dis­con­tin­u­ing their oral med­ica­tions. We need to make them more ac­ces­si­ble to en­sure con­sis­tent treat­ment.”

He al­so high­light­ed the se­vere staff short­ages in men­tal health ser­vices, which can im­pede time­ly in­ter­ven­tions. Dr Deyals­ingh al­so sug­gest­ed that in some cas­es, fam­i­lies might need to pur­sue a court or­der to have their loved ones in­vol­un­tar­i­ly com­mit­ted to a fa­cil­i­ty like St Ann’s.

“Some­times, a mag­is­trate can or­der that a per­son be brought to a men­tal health fa­cil­i­ty, but we need a more sys­tem­at­ic ap­proach where in­put from so­cial work­ers, doc­tors, rel­a­tives, and even the pub­lic can help in ob­tain­ing these or­ders,” he added.

Deyals­ingh stressed the im­por­tance of ed­u­cat­ing fam­i­lies about the signs of men­tal ill­ness and the steps they can take to pre­vent vi­o­lence. He al­so em­pha­sised the need for well-staffed in­sti­tu­tions and the avail­abil­i­ty of po­lice and am­bu­lance ser­vices to defuse vi­o­lent sit­u­a­tions when they arise.

“We must un­der­stand that not all in­di­vid­u­als with men­tal ill­ness are vi­o­lent. Sta­tis­tics show that men­tal­ly ill pa­tients are more like­ly to be vic­tims of vi­o­lence than per­pe­tra­tors. But we need to be vig­i­lant for those with para­noid delu­sions who may act out. Rel­a­tives must reach out for help,” he added.

Boodram, 57, was killed around noon on Mon­day when she went to in­quire about a dis­con­nect­ed in­ter­net sup­ply at her Cleghorn Vil­lage, Princes Town home. A 31-year-old man is now in po­lice cus­tody.