The Tribune

By LETRE SWEETING

lsweeting@tribunemedia.net

ACTING Corrections Commissioner Doan Cleare said he is “happy” with recent progress made for the care of mentally ill inmates at the Bahamas Department of Correctional Services (BDCS), following approval from Cabinet for the hiring of psychiatrists.

Mr Cleare told The Tribune yesterday: “Currently, the Cabinet of The Bahamas has approved two psychologists and two psychiatrists. We are now having the paperwork, in terms of getting them contracts to sign, that should be ready in about two weeks.”

Mr Cleare added: “But we still have them coming in and seeing patients prior to (that) because of the great need. So we have the two psychologists come here frequently. They are now coming in on their own, even without the contract to assist us, because of great need.”

He said representatives from the Sandilands Rehabilitation Centre also come to the prison once a week to treat inmates.

He continued: “One of the greatest changes so far is we are now seeing the inmates on a daily basis and it is quite a number of them who are here. I’m just happy that finally some progress is being made now on the mental health front.”

Mr Cleare said the hiring of the new therapists is currently being processed by the Ministry of Public Service.

“So what’s going on now is that we have persons now full time on staff, but it’s just they are now being processed by the public service, for them to actually start. So once we get their contracts ready. They will be good to go,” Mr Cleare said.

“What is being done is we are now trying to ascertain office space for the four new doctors. We have completed two of them thus far and we are trying to get the other areas outfitted for their use,” he said.

“They came in and they actually told us what they wanted, it’s different from the ordinary centres, so we have to build it to their specifications. They have given quite a number of recommendations and we are now following through on what was requested from them,” Mr Cleare said.

Last month, a mentally ill prisoner died after complaining of chest pains following a fight at the BDCS.

Following a fight with another mentally ill inmate in a shared cell, the 44-year-old complained of chest pains and breathing issues and was later taken to the hospital where he died, police reported.

Following the incident, Mr Cleare said that while he is concerned about the incident, he expected fewer altercations pending government approval for psychiatrists to work at BDCS.

“I am very much concerned and that is why the government has acceded to my request in hiring four psychiatrists. Cabinet has to approve it and we hope to have them start working in a few days,” Mr Cleare said at the time.

“You know, Sandilands is not taking anyone from us pretty much and we have close to over 150 mental inmates and due to the lack of spacing we have to put them in cells with each other. So hence is the problem,” he said.

“So now that we’ll have four full-time psychiatrists, they (mentally ill inmates) could now start to be treated, with the proper medication, because before that we were only a warehouse for Sandilands,” Mr Cleare said.

“Additionally, the government has also approved for eight of the correctional officers to be trained in mental observation to assess the inmates, because you know we were not trained,” he said.

“So hopefully within a few months, all should settle down in terms of trying to lessen the amount of altercations between these inmates,” Mr Cleare said at the time.