Now While Bennett applauded Commissioner Chester Williams for his commitment to ensuring that persons living with mental illness are better treated and handled in police care, she doesn't quite agree with investing in a padded cell, her focus as a mental health professional is treatment.
Eleanor Bennett
"For me from a health perspective I would prefer that we invest in having more acute units and acute facilities where people are acutely ill, this is an illness, it is a behavior but it is as a result of an illness so people with more acute illnesses can get the treatment that they need again for some patients aggression is a symptom of the illness and certainly requires treatment my first choice would obviously not be incarcerated, my first choice would be treatment because we understand why a person is behaving like this and we understand how to address it."
Bennett says clinics countrywide, as well as the Western Regional Hospital and at times the KHMH offer the first level of care for persons who are mentally ill. Then if they need to be admitted there is a 4 bed acute unit at the Western Regional Hospital for extremely ill patients. They are monitored closely there. Once they are stabilized and need additional care they can go to the Palm Center in Belmopan which is a residential facility. In the end, Bennett hopes to strengthen their collaboration with the police.
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