And incidences of violent episodes exhibited by mentally ill patients isn't anything new. Last November, Francis Ramos was shot dead by police on the Swing Bridge after charging at the officer with a knife. Earlier this year, another mentally ill man reportedly burnt down his own house. An elderly woman was killed, and a student was injured, both by men who were suffering from a mental disorder. The frequency with which these incidents happen should have prompted authorities to take action, but it seems that every time a mentally ill patient makes the news for violent and dangerous behavior, there are no concrete steps taken towards fixing the problem. And the Mental Health Association has been advocating for years for the one thing that can be of great, life-saving benefit: a psychiatric forensic unit.
For reference, we bring back an interview done with the association's president, Kathy Esquivel, after the Swing Bridge incident last year.
Kathy Esquivel
"Now then you come to those cases where you have someone who is potentially a danger to themselves or others and that requires something far more secure. So what we have proposed and what we will continue advocating is a small, what you call, Forensic Unit. Now obviously, Forensic Unit has to have security, it has to have a lot in its place. What would that be? Well, when someone is exhibiting violent indications, ideally we would want to take them off of the street before there is an incident. So that is what a Forensic Unit is. But it's important to have a strong legislative framework because you can't just be locking people up because you think they might cause a problem. In Belize, I don't see we would need more than four to six beds, because it would be short term. And then from there, an assessment is made and a legal decision whether the person can be treated and released and just assessed periodically, whatever happens."
Currently, there is only one acute unit in Belmopan, but Esquivel has expressed that Belize City is in great need of its own.
