By KEVIN SPURGAITIS
HAMILTON, Bermuda — The doors remain open at St. Brendan’s Hospital, allowing mental illness sufferers to pursue ordinary lives.
As St.Brendan’s shifts from institutional to community-based treatment, medical practitioners are developing patients’ daily living and social skills. But with this emphasis on societal integration, the need for public awareness is that much greater, according to Bermuda’s mental health professionals.
The hospital is no longer a home for most mental illness sufferers, says Glen Caisey, program manager of mental health services at St.Brendan’s. “Just because you suffer from a mental illness, it doesn’t mean you can’t be a contributive member of society by working a steady job, managing your own affairs and enjoying recreational activities,” he says. “Outpatients now have the opportunity to become better simply by creating a cause in their life. Instead of being left in the hospital to be watched over and cared for, they can do ordinary things like shop, go to the movies and watch sport matches by themselves.”
With their integration into the general population, mental illness sufferers cease to be “institutionalized” the way they were years ago, Mr. Caisey asserts. The hospital’s mental health community program, which includes vocational and readjustment training, assists outpatients in their adaptation to community living. The goal is to reduce the length and frequency of their hospital stay, while creating employment opportunities for them. In St.Brendan’s learning disabilities ward, patients prepare for community homes by learning ADL (attention to daily living) skills including mopping, sweeping, cooking and bed making. New Dimensions, the hospital’s therapeutic program for the learning disabled, fosters their social interaction with community members and facilitates clients’ job placement in such areas as grocery retail.
The downsizing of hospitalization is better observed in St. Brendan’s admission wards, where 19 of 60 beds are presently filled. With the significant decrease of inpatients, hospital programs are now properly divided and tailored to individual needs. However, despite moves made by the hospital, traditional tag names, such as “luny bin” or “pink house,” are still used for St. Brendan’s. Stigma is much greater in Bermuda because of the social structure and intimacy of the island. Family, friends and neighbours of patients remain secretive as a result, according to Preston Swan, clinical coordinator for St.Brendan’s learning disabilities program.
Mr. Swan says visitors are still amazed about the absence of padded cells at St. Brendan’s, which works towards helping patients reach their maximum potential — something not always achieved within the confines of a mental health institution. “We want our clients to remain out there in the community and our job is to support them,” he says. “We are trying to integrate clients into the community as opposed to keeping them in group homes or the hospital. We want them to become active members of society and be more involved in community activities.”
Although they are not always able to articulate their concerns, Mr.Swan says his clients still want to have the same things in life as everyone else. They simply want to make fundamental choices for themselves.
The discharge of its clients into the community not only eases hospital resources, but sponsors the overall wellness of mental illness sufferers. However, such re-integration will require the cooperation of those who maintain ill perceptions of St. Brendan’s, Mr. Swan says.
“It’s not the end of the world for these people. It’s not a dungeon, it is a hospital.”
Originally published in the Bermuda Sun, December 2000
