Rutgers University to help mentally ill stay off the streets

Santo Domingo.- Padre Billini Mental Health Center and New Jersey’s Rutgers University will develop a joint program to reduce the presence of the mentally ill on the country’s streets and ensure their safety and human dignity.

The program ‘The Good Advice’ consists of community efforts to integrate the family and friends of people with mental health challenges, to orient and provide appropriate tools that help them cope with their relative’s disease.

Drs. Susan Caplan and Fabio Escobar, of Rutgers’ Mental Health Dept. are in the country, and met with colleague Carmen Ramírez, who heads Billini’s facility at the town of Pedro Brand, 28 kilometers north of the capital.

Ramírez said Rutgers’ physicians will conduct a census on the social reality of the people living with mental health issues. “We’ll help those people who suffer from mental illness since many wander the streets for lack of good treatment or for being abandoned by their families.”