Health
Barbados' 131-Year-Old Psychiatric Hospital to Undergo Rebranding Efforts to Reduce Stigma and Improve Accessibility
The 131-year-old Psychiatric Hospital in Barbados is undergoing a rebranding to reduce stigma around mental health services. Health authorities aim to make the facility more welcoming and accessible. Discussions have begun between the Ministry of Health and hospital management.
The 131-year-old Psychiatric Hospital is set to undergo a rebranding as part of efforts to reduce the stigma preventing people from accessing mental health services, Director of the Psychiatric Hospital David Leacock revealed exclusively to Barbados TODAY.
Health authorities are aiming to ensure that the facility, the island’s sole main provider of mental healthcare, becomes more welcoming to those in need.
Leacock revealed that preliminary discussions have already taken place between the Ministry of Health and the hospital’s management.
“The minister himself, the Minister of State in the Ministry of Health and Wellness [Davidson Ishmael], would have raised this matter with us a few weeks or months ago, having the need for us to more or less, improve access to services from our end, because of the idea of it not carrying that longstanding stigma associated with being the hospital and where it came from,” he said.
He acknowledged that, despite efforts to encourage people to seek help regardless of where they access it, negative associations with the Psychiatric Hospital persist.
“That’s understandable, but it is something we are definitely looking at, and hopefully, in the near future, it would be supported towards a name change,” he added.
The Psychiatric Hospital began in 1893 as the Mental Asylum when it opened on the site of the Jenkinsville plantation in Black Rock.
Successive generations of Barbadians referred to the asylum–later renamed the Mental Hospital and then the Psychiatric Hospital–by its location, ‘Jenkins’ and ‘Black Rock’. The Victorian-era buildings and layout have remained largely unchanged with modest improvements over the intervening years.
Leacock was keen to stress that the planned rebranding is not just about changing the name.
“The idea of a name change is not just that, but also bringing awareness to persons about what it is that [the Psychiatric Hospital] does, and hopefully with that, we can get a better understanding of the role that we play, and hopefully some of the issues that they have in seeking care wouldn’t be as many as they are now,” he explained.
The hospital director stressed that the institution will be careful not to reinforce stigma by creating divisions based on socio-economic status. “Yes, we are mindful that persons may say, ‘I am not mentally ill’ and therefore should be seeking services in a place where persons are mentally ill. The reality is that, within our population, a quarter of all persons will experience mental health challenges in their lifetime, whether it be depression, some persons or families will experience mental health challenges,” he pointed out.
