I have just checked our data base on iNews Cayman and in the last two years we have published nearly twenty articles, including editorials on mental health. Most have covered the lack of mental health facilities here and inadequate funds in government budgets to help provide adequate assistance to the ever increasing numbers of persons requiring help.

We finally applauded the signing of a building contract back in 2017 for such a facility to provide mental health patients with an installation in East End. The large majority of mental health patients had and still have to be sent abroad.

The building work was scheduled to be completed this year.

Nothing has happened and not even a hole has been dug.

Back in 2015 Cayman Islands psychiatrist Dr. Marc Lockhart shocked us all when he announced about 4,000 people here had sought access to mental health services in 2013. He added, the figure actually could be closer “4,500 or even 5,000 people … out of a population of 60,000” !

However, Dr. Lockhart said only about 10 percent of that number, between 400 and 500 people in Cayman, might be described as having acute, recurring mental disorders, such as schizophrenia.

Move on to October 2018 and Dr. Lockhart said the East End facility had been delayed and the new start date would now be at the beginning of 2019.

I’m afraid I wrote a sarcastic Editorial saying, something to the affect, the good doctor might be himself suffering an illusion if he really thought that date might be met.

In a press release last Friday we learned that the construction work has been repackaged into five separate packages. This has been done to encourage smaller contractors to bid.

What happened to the original contractor who signed a contract back in 2017?

I understand from our various marl road sources that aliens took him away tor evaluation. This is the reason government has given no explanation as to what happened.

It couldn’t possibly be because, as has been reported by some media outlets (not us) that “the amount of construction now underway in Cayman is fuelling a significant increase in building costs and causing a shortage of labour.” – CNS

It is a reasonable explanation. If that was the case then government would have said so. There couldn’t be any reason why they wouldn’t. My alien theory can be the only reason why they are silent upon the matter.

When Chief Officer in the Health Ministry, Jennifer Ahearn, was contacted about it she said with the right amount of gobbledegook, “the ministry is fully committed to driving the process forwards to a timely resolution”.

Well done, Jennifer, a perfectly satisfactory government answer that has absolutely nothing to do with the question asked.

Back to the Press release:

The new tender covers five separate parts of the project:

• Tender Package 1 : Enabling Works (Site preparation with site services)
• Tender Package 2 : Main Building
• Tender Package 3.1: Cottage cluster 1 (3 units)
• Tender Package 3.2: Cottage cluster 2 (3 units)
• Tender Package 3.3: Cottage cluster 3 (3 units)
• Tender Package 4: Site Finishing (Exterior works)
• Tender Package 5: FF&E

“It is expected that contracts will be awarded to the successful bidders on the first three packages this year, with work set to begin in late 2019. The final two packages will be tendered in 2020 and are expected to be completed the same year,”

Don’t you just love the word “expected”?

And, look for more “woes” ahead.

See also iNews Cayman story published today “Ministry of Health Re-tenders Contract for Construction of Long-Term Residential Mental Health Facility”