Health authorities to help people with mental illness

Santo Domingo.- The Mental Health Department director at theMinistry of Public Health, Dr. Ángel Almánzar, announced plans Thursdayto identify and support people with mental illness who are on the streets.

Hesaid that they were working to set up a specialized unit that will helpindividuals, who due to chronic mental disorders, are wandering aimlessly onthe streets.

The official said that the measure wouldnot apply to homeless people, but would target people with mental problems whohad been abandoned to their fate on the streets.

He said that they would be examined andstabilized and if they qualified, they would be taken to a psychosocial rehabilitationcenter with a view to eventually reuniting them with their families, onceidentified and located.

Almánzar was speaking before giving alecture on the Dominican Republic’s new mental healthcare model, during anevent organized by the Funglode (Global Foundation for Democracy andDevelopment) Health Studies Center. During the talk the psychiatrist outlinedthe progress he said had been made in the country’s mental health sector.

He said that this aspect of health,unlike in the past, when patients were treated in “asylums”, where no onemonitored their progress, they are now taken to psychosocial rehabilitationcenters, where they are given medication and treated.