Articles of this kind can play an important role

Mar 20, 2018 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
I wish to congratulate you, your journalist Ms Shevon Nedd for the page 12 report in today’s Kaieteur News (March 19, 2018) and especially Ms. Alecia Patterson, for her courage in speaking frankly and publicly on the depression she suffered which, as the headline stated, “Depression almost made me kill my daughter.”
I hope her testimony will mean that the judge, jury, prosecutor, police, lawyers and other legal-minded personnel, and members of the public will refrain from treating Ms. Hofosawa Rutherford as a criminal who attempted to kill herself and who killed her two small children, Hodaciea and Jabari.
We still do not yet have an adequate complement of mental health professionals with the education, training, understanding, life experience, and compassion that our country desperately needs. We still have a perverted view of what constitutes justice. We still fail to grasp that violence begets violence. While much, much, much more is needed from many, many, many quarters at domestic and public levels, articles of this kind can play an important role in raising our mental health awareness.
Thanks and Praises,
Bonita Harris