On a recent visit to one of our medical health clinics, I sat in quiet moments and observed the uncaring and impatient attitude being displayed by some of our mental-health workers. It is painfully obvious to me that, despite gains made over the years in psychiatric care, the level of ignorance and intolerance is far too high, particularly among educated Jamaicans whom we would expect to exercise greater care and sensitivity towards individuals suffering from mental illnesses.

Equally important is the fact that the Government needs to provide greater assistance in terms of National Health Fund contributions toward prescription drugs for mental illnesses. There is also a need to increase the number of psychiatrists and psychologists in the health sector, to provide greater levels of consultation and counselling.

Jump! Jump!

The frantic shouts of 'Jump! Jump!' by hundreds of onlookers when a mentally ill man climbed to the top of Kingston Public Hospital and eventually jumped on to an iron fence, while hundreds of people laughed; when a trained teacher at a high school can be called 'mad gal' and hundreds of parents demonstrate at the school's gate calling for the 'mad gal' to go home; when more than 20 mentally ill individuals can be picked up in a truck and dumped by a mud lake in St Elizabeth, then you can understand how backward and uncaring we are as a people towards people living with mental illnesses.

It does not stop there. Far too many still believe that anyone suffering from mental illnesses should remain a hermit at his place of abode as his presence anywhere else gets in the way of the 'sane and healthy'. I am very disappointed at the Govern-ment's lack of commitment towards this area of health care. The Government must right the wrong before it recedes into the obscurity of history.

I know it takes cash to care but, more important, it needs a caring government to find the cash. Are there no caring people in the Government? Not even one? How about you, 'Chief Servant'?

I am, etc.,

André Wellington

Dip Ed, BA

Christiana Leased Primary

Manchester