After spending two weeks in post-Hurricane Melissa Jamaica to help a ravaged community in Montego Bay, nurse Tanisha Mills says more needs to be done to help support people’s mental health.
“[I saw] children coming in visibly afraid and anxious and withdrawn post-hurricane,” Mills, a registered practical nurse who works for Region of Waterloo Public Health, told CBC News. “I felt that they should feel safe at the hospital, but the children were afraid of something as simple as the dark … a lot of the area was still without electricity.”
Mills works for the region’s public health unit’s vaccine preventable disease program. She volunteered to assist Cornwall Regional Hospital’s emergency room in Montego Bay, Jamaica from Nov. 29 to Dec. 15.
There she saw how Hurricane Melissa, the first Category 5 storm to make landfall in Jamaica in recorded history, left many people facing not just physical injuries, but also mental health struggles.
Bothered by what she saw, she’s working on what she calls a “small, early-stage effort” to raise awareness about an international need for mental health support.
“My goal is to see how we can partner from here in the Waterloo region to support the efforts on the ground [in Jamaica],” she said.
Mills says she’s “not starting anything new” but she wants to find ways so local health practitioners “can partner, how we can send some kits for kids to colour and use art as therapy, or talk in groups where people can talk and how we can maybe help support that.”
Communities coming together for Jamaica
The past few weeks, local communities across Canada have come together to send help to affected communities in Jamaica.
In early December, the Jamaican-Canadian community put together a benefit concert in Toronto called the “Harmonies of Hope” to raise money for those affected by the disaster.
Then, just this Christmas holiday, Waterloo resident Sarah Vazzoler collected things like summer clothes, shoes for children and baby diapers for survivors of Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica.
All these efforts address people’s most pressing needs for food, shelter and clothing.
However, Mills says she saw a definite need for mental health support. She says if Jamaica is to “rebuild the house,” then people need to be taken care of on all fronts.
“[We need to] look at ways to address [people’s mental health] now when this hurricane happens so we’re not seeing the effects of it later in down the line,” Mills explained.
Children need help in ‘a different way’
Matt Harrigan is the director of adult services at the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) of Waterloo-Wellington.
He said “loss and grief” naturally follow a disaster. He also said disasters come with many triggers to a person’s mental health decline, including loss of family members, destruction of homes and injuries.
“We’ve seen in these situations how folks may develop depression, anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder and other conditions,” he explained.
“Folks who already had a pre-existing mental health condition … somebody lives with depression or psychosis where they were receiving treatment for that, they might be cut off from that, whether that’s psychiatry, counseling, medication.”
Harrigan said it’s mostly because the focus of disaster response can be “often [about] making sure that medically and physically, people are stabilized.”
“I think sometimes what can be forgotten is the mental health impact, which can be lasting … the emotional and psychological impact,” he said.
Between May and June, Manitoba experienced on of the worst wildfire season in recent memory.
Some of the evacuees from the wildfires were sent to Niagara. Harrigan said the CMHA was among the few organizations present to extend help.
He says in many cases, children aren’t able to comprehend the gravity of the situation.
“What we saw was a lot of children maybe didn’t fully understand what’s going on. Maybe they lost people … or have been separated from people that are very close to them,” he said.
“They need some help in processing and talking through what’s going on … and it’s a different way of doing it.”
Important mental health ‘is not overlooked’
As for women, both Harrigan and Mills agree that mothers often worry about taking care of their children and families first.
“They’re managing so much that they’re not even focused on themselves. Again, that’s not all women, but that was definitely something we saw,” he explained.
It’s also what Mills said she saw while she was in Jamaica.
She said that women she saw were so focused on helping their kids, they’re not “able to take care of themselves like taking their medication, taking their blood pressure pills and insulin.”
“I think children and women often carry the emotional weight of the disaster the longest,” Mills said. “It carries … for generations. It’s important that their mental health is something that is not overlooked.”
Harrigan agrees.
“The quicker and more timely you can get mental health care, it’s going to have a huge difference overall from their recovery,” he said.
With her “small, early-stage effort,” Mills said her next step is to connect with local nurses, doctors, and organizations to see how they can come together to support people who need mental health care in Jamaica.
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