One can only find sympathy for Debbie Ebanks and the judge who sentenced her to 12 months in prison.

The real culprits are us for not being able to convince our government there is a mental health problem here in the Cayman Islands and it must be speedily dealt with.

With the media, including iNews Cayman, screaming the problems with our education system, the One Man One Vote issue, our refuse dump and the Never Ending Song of Tempura, the fact there is NO PROPER FACILITIES TO TREAT MENTALLY HANDICAPPED PERSONS is forgotten.

When a mentally handicapped person commits a crime the only place for that person to be confined is prison.

One of the worst places a mentally handicapped person can be placed is prison.

This is especially true when that prison has sparse facilities to deal with mentally handicapped persons.

Here in the Cayman Islands with every charity imaginable shouting out their name for attention, from the arts, to cancer, to the environment, sports, animals, children, MENTAL HEALTH is bottom.

It is a subject we do not want to have to deal with.

Debbie Ebanks is one of the victims of our failure to address the problem full on.

It is not as though we have not been warned.

Psychiatrist Dr Marc Lockhart has been shouting out this message that we have a serious problem and there are inadequate facilities here to deal with it, for years.

Have we listened? Hardly.

Debbie Ebanks is the woman who, half naked, went on a rampage wielding machetes and threatening staff and public alike at two restaurants in George Town recently to demand not money but something to eat.

She was immediately sent to Fairbanks prison and immediately was attacked by another inmate there and had to be hospitalized. She has been attacked by other prisoners three times.

Ebanks is not only suffering from mental illness she is also a cocaine addict.

Where on earth I have to ask has she been able to obtain cocaine?

Has she been able to inform the police where she has been able to find the drug to make her health problem even worse?

Has she even been asked?

With the reputation that drug offenders in Cayman’s prisons can still  obtain drugs, Ebanks being sent to Fairbanks prison doesn’t make me feel easy she will not be able to feed her habit. The fact she is apt to be noisy makes me feel a sniff of cocaine from someone there may be the answer to keep her quiet.

Justice Charles Quin very reluctantly sent her back to the place, where I fear she will only get worse, because there was nowhere else in this country he could sentence her, too.

Out of sight is often out of mind.

The judge told Ebanks that people like Dr. Lockhart were “really trying to help you. Nobody wants to see you incarcerated. They want to see you get better,” he said. Dr Lockhart’s pre-sentencing report said Ebanks would be best served by uninterrupted treatment with a partially suspended sentence, with time in prison also to help treat her drug abuse. Justice Quin agreed with Dr Lockhart in sentencing her to the 12 months prison sentence. He also partially suspended the sentence if and when Ebanks became suitable for release based on the doctor’s recommendation and her probation officer.

He said he would be happy to review Ebanks’ case at any stage to assess if she were suitable for release, adding that it was regrettable that he was constrained by the legislation to the facilities that are available.

“It is quite clear that there is a desperate need for a mental health facility. He said. “It is not fair, not right, not human that people can’t get that treatment. Today’s hearing demonstrates a chronic need.”

I fear there will be a long wait for the judge to re-assess her sentence if he even gets the chance.

Oh what a sad, sad case.

IMAGE: ‪thenewpolitical.com