Mental health is fundamental to health. This is reflected by the definition of health in the World Health Organization (WHO) Constitution as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity."
The Ministry of Public Health, Social Development and Labour in collaboration with the WHO and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), have organized a workshop for stakeholders to introduce a new assessment instrument for mental health systems.
A representative from PAHO will be leading the workshop on Tuesday at the Sonesta Great Bay Beach Hotel & Casino with respect to ‘Assessment Instrument Mental Health Systems (AIMS).’
Besides local stakeholders such as the St. Maarten Medical Center, Mental Health Foundation, Alzheimer’s Foundation, more than 30 organizations and institutions have signed up to participate in the workshop. There will also be representatives from various organizations from Curacao, Bonaire, Saba and St. Eustatius in attendance.
The AIMS tool will be utilized in St. Maarten in the very near future and will look at our mental health care system. It is not an evaluation but solely an assessment after which recommendations will be given to improve and or maintain standards.
WHO aims to provide health planners, policy-makers, and donors with a set of clear and coherent activities and programmes for scaling up care for mental, neurological and substance use disorders through the ‘Mental Health Gap Action Programme.’
Mental health is paramount to personal well-being, family relationships, and successful contributions to society. It is related to the development of societies and countries.
Mental ill-health and poverty interact in a negative cycle: mental ill-health impedes people’s ability to learn and to engage productively in their economies, and poverty in turn increases the risk for developing mental disorders, and reduces people’s ability to gain access to health services.
The workshop related to mental health also falls within the parameters of the Minister of Public Health’s Hon. Cornelius de Weever’s ‘Get Checked’ campaign. Minister De Weever says in order for the country to have a comprehensive approach in dealing with mental health, the country has to ‘get checked’ first by having the necessary information at its disposal in order to develop the ideal programs and interventions for the people of the country.
AIMS have been carried out on different islands in the Caribbean.
It was used to collect information on the mental health system in Anguilla.
The information collected and gathered on Anguilla would enable the authorities to develop information-based mental health plans with clear base-line information and targets.
It would be useful to monitor progress in implementing reform policies, providing community services, and involving users, families and other stakeholders in mental health promotion, prevention, care, and rehabilitation.