Jamaica: Community Mental Health Services

Mental health services in Jamaica are in transition. Jamaica’s Ministry of Health is trying to develop a better and more comprehensive community mental health system by building on the success of pioneer community services while scaling down Bellevue, the country’s biggest and best known psychiatric hospital. Mental health officers (MHOs) are at the heart of the transformation; increasing the number of specialist nurses also is considered crucial for sustaining the delivery of quality services. These changes are occurring within the context of an ailing economy with tight fiscal controls. This chapter describes the work of MHOs, as a way to showcase a model of mental health care delivery that can be replicated in other lowand middle-income countries. The material is based on a review of the literature on psychiatric services in Jamaica, as well as on 2003 field work during which Jamaica’s MHOs and other mental health service providers were interviewed. The author would like to thank the Government of Jamaica’s Ministry of Health, the Pan American Health Organization’s country office, and last, but certainly not least, all the clinicians who were interviewed.