- Norman Grindley Alma Levy, standing right, nursing director of the Sunnybrook Home, and Natalie Reid, standing left, an assistant recovery counsellor, bring Christmas cheer to mentally ill patients of the institution during the annual Christmas dinner on Friday evening.
Claude Mills, Staff Reporter
FACED with the prospect of zero Christmas cheer from close relatives, mentally ill patients residing in islandwide institutions and lounging on the nation's streets are battening down for what could be a bleak Christmas.
They are aware that they are mentally ill, they are aware of what they are missing, and they see other people having normal, loving relationships. So at this time of the year, they may get depressed especially since they can remember tasting better days," said Joan Browne, a member of Mensana, a mental health support group.
Mensana is a Kingston-based group that comprises relatives of persons with mental illnesses.
Patients at mental institutions are sometimes more heavily sedated during Christmas.
"Some of the patients make a big deal about going home, and become sad and emotionally withdrawn, so we use injections to calm them down, especially during Christmas, anniversaries and birthdays," said Natalie Reid, assistant recovery counsellor of the Sunnybrook Home.
The Yuletide season is a tough time for the mentally ill - and their relatives. Families with mentally ill members are particularly susceptible to "Yuletide angst", and could succumb to the depression that they have wrestled with for years.
"It's like losing a child, you remember their potential," said Mrs. Browne, whose son has been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. "You find yourself in a flashback of better Christmases past, thinking about what could have been instead of where things are now."
For the institutionalised mentally ill, the season is doubly difficult.
"Most of these patients no longer even receive visitors - some haven't got visitors in over 10 years - and some can't even remember their family members," said Donald Allison, a staff nurse on the Roy Cooke Ward of Bellevue Hospital.
"I feel that some of the relatives have forgotten that they are alive, while some are afraid that if they come, the hospital might tell them to take home the patient - some of whom can function outside - and they're not in the position to do that."
Mr. Allison explained that most of the patients on his ward could return home for Christmas if there were families to accommodate them.
Mrs. Browne confirmed that there were relatives who were afraid to visit because they feel that the institution will compel them to take their relatives home.
"I know of one mother who is afraid to go and see her young son because somebody at Bellevue says that she ought to take him," Mrs. Browne said. "She can't because of the position she is in now, and so she's in a quandary, in between a rock and a hard place."
However, the staff of the Bellevue Hospital strives to simulate as much Christmas cheer as possible during the season.
"Although some have no family to visit, Christmas remains one of their best times of the year as there are church parties, ward parties and it's a fairly good time for patients," said Yvonne Miller, chief executive officer of the Bellevue Hospital. "They get excited, the wards are decorated, and the spirit is in the air."
There are 1,020 patients at Bellevue Hospital, with a ratio of 2:1 in favour of males. Meanwhile, there are 600 mentally ill persons living on the streets of Jamaica, and at least 250 of these roam the Corporate Area.
On Christmas Day, Bellevue patients are served almost every possible traditional Yuletide delicacy, including Christmas cake, pudding, ham, chicken, roast beef, potato salad and sorrel.
At the Sunnybrook Home in rural St. Andrew, patients received their annual Christmas dinner on Friday, and shared the day with dozens of children from the Coopers Hill area. At the home, which houses 28 patients, six of that number will return home to spend Christmas with their relatives.
"Ms. Dor", who plunged into a deep depression after the death of her 63-year-old mother, is one of Sunybrook's success stories.
She often returns home on weekends, and attends church regularly.
Eulalee Walker (not her real name), 73, a patient at the home for the last seven months, told The Sunday Gleaner reporter that she would not be spending this Christmas with her son.
"He is my only child, I should be having Christmas dinner with him, and his family... but that won't be happening... but I will spend Christmas right here," the Sunnybrook resident said.
Another patient, called Rohan, 24, who claims he began smoking marijuana at age 16, will be spending his first Christmas without his mother who lives in Queens, New York.
"The last time I spoke to her was in January this year when she called me. I don't really even want her to call me for Christmas," he said. "The people here are nice, but I don't want her to talk to me here...It hurts me to know that I am here...but it's for my own good."
