We do not undervalue, or take lightly, the efforts of the folks whose financial and other contributions helped in the construction of the recently opened family lounge at the Bellevue psychiatric hospital in Kingston.
However, **The Gleaner** especially welcomes the association of Leon Bailey with the project, for whom the lounge is named. Mr Bailey donated J$500,000 to the construction of the lounge, and has pledged further financial contributions for the upgrading of other facilities at the institution.
But it is more than the money. Leon Bailey is a Jamaican international footballer who plays in the English Premier League (EPL) for Aston Villa, which is now ninth, among 21 teams, in this year’s competition. The EPL is considered the world’s toughest football league.
Mr Bailey is at, or near, the peak of his prowess as a footballer. He is one of the stars of the EPL. Leon Bailey, who previously played in Germany’s Bundesliga, is an increasingly globally recognised football personality.
Apart from its basic humanity, Mr Bailey’s ongoing involvement with Bellevue Hospital has another great significance. Last year on Labour Day, he, in keeping with what happens annually across Jamaica, was among the scores of people who contributed their labour in cleaning up and refurbishing the hospital.
Leon Bailey, by openly standing with Bellevue and making it known that he has a family member who has a mental health condition, has struck, and is striking, a blow against the discrimination and stigma, and for all people who suffer from mental illness. Which is a lot.
GREATER PREVALENCE AMONG WOMEN
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Indeed, the World Health Organization (WHO), in 2019, estimated 970 million people globally, or around 13 per cent of the world’s population, suffered from a mental disorder of some kind. The greater prevalence was among women: 52.4 per cent.
The Americas region, which includes the Caribbean, had the highest level of mental disorders – 15.6 per cent of the region’s population.
In Jamaica, the authorities estimate that 20 per cent of the island’s population will at some point in their lives develop some mental health condition of some kind. However, the late psychiatrist, Professor Fred Hickling, who in the 1970s pioneered cultural intervention programmes at Bellevue, and was a proponent of community-based treatment, felt that the problem was significantly more prevalent.
Whatever the numbers, large numbers of people, either for fear of stigma and discrimination, an absence of access to mental health support, or mere ignorance, suffer in silence.
So, with 15 per cent of the world’s working-age population suffering from a mental disorder, an estimated 20 billion working days are lost each year because of people who stay home because of anxiety and depression.
LOST PRODUCTIVITY
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Yet, the WHO estimate is that mental health conditions, with respect to lost productivity and treatment, will, by 2030, cost the global economy US$6 trillion, up from US$2.6 trillion in 2010. Yet, on average, countries spend only two per cent of their healthcare budgets on mental health and wellness.
Last September, Gaston Browne, the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, in a eulogy to his mother, spoke movingly and with eloquence about his struggle with schizophrenia and the impact on his and his sister’s lives as children. As prime minister, this personal, public lifting of the veil on mental illness was a courageous act on behalf of all the people who suffer from a mental health condition, who, if it were known, might be subjected to discrimination and stigma. Similarly, Leon Bailey’s involvement is equal to any dribble he has made, any pass he has done or any goal he will ever score.
“A lot of people who are in the spotlight probably don’t understand the importance of trying to give a word of encouragement, because they don’t know what it is like, and what that word of encouragement can do for somebody’s life,” Mr Bailey said at Bellevue last week.
Hopefully, others with similar platforms and profiles have heard Leon Bailey.