Fair in the Square, Mental Health Week hailed a success
By Ryan Haas
Reporter-SKNVibes.com
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - THE activities of Mental Health Week climaxed yesterday (Oct. 10) with an informative and very well attended Health Fair in Independence Square.
Held from 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., the Health Fair coincided with World Mental Health Day and provided a number of services to the public free of cost, such as blood pressure screenings, stress tests and counselling services.
There were also a number of quality clothing and kitchen items for sale, many of which were made by the mental health patients in the Federation.
SKNVibes spoke to one of the booth operators at the fair, who said that he could not believe the massive turnout for the event, which was bolstered by a march for Teachers’ Week being held simultaneously in Independence Square.
“I have had people coming around all day asking questions about mental health, young and old,” the volunteer said. “We have been handing out a lot of information and trying to make people more aware of mental health issues they should know about.”
Among the information being handed out at the fair were numerous pamphlets and fact sheets about very common mental health issues, such as stress and substance abuse.
Dr. Sharon Halliday, Consultant Psychiatrist, stressed that during Mental Health Week and throughout the time after, it is important for people to realise that mental health disorders could affect everyone and might be more subtle than one believes.
“Just recognising that mental illness can not only result in bizarre behaviour like running up and down the street naked, but can actually affect your whole being is very important. We hope the public would be able to ask themselves, ‘If I get a mental illness what are the things that I would like in place in society to help me? What is the attitude I would like people to have toward me?’ ~~Adz:Right~~
“Once we begin to think along those lines it would help to change our attitudes,” Halliday said.
Chief Medical Officer for St. Kitts-Nevis, Dr. Patrick Martin, echoed these sentiments in a radio address to the nation at the start of the week.
“Gone are the days of dismissing people with mental disorders as ‘crazy people’. We live in a world with high stress…How many of us are one hurricane, one mortgage payment or one death in our family away from the limit of coping?”
Aside from the Mental Health Fair, the week of activities also featured a keynote address by world renowned HIV/AIDS and substance abuse specialist Dr. Beny J. Primm, a fun day for the patients in St. Kitts and Nevis and the appearance of the Federation’s medical practitioners on numerous radio programmes to discuss mental health issues with the general public.
World Mental Health Day was first started in 1991 by the World Federation for Mental Health, which is comprised of members from more than 150 countries around the globe.
