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The secretary general of the Dominican Psychiatric Association said that the incident in which military doctor Ana Garcia beheaded her six-year-old daughter showed that she was suffering from mental illness and that her severity had exceeded the normal range. The media reported that she was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Psychiatrist Victor Figueroa said that if this version is confirmed, the filicide was most likely not taking medication, adding an important religious component.
Figueroa added that another hypothesis that could be put forward is that Dona Ana Garcia also suffered from some kind of religious delusion and that she acted under orders, namely auditory hallucinations, to perform actions that shocked Dominican society.
Héctor Herrera Cabral, in an interview on the D’AGENDA show, which airs every Sunday on Telesistema Channel 11 and TV Quisqueya, said that this is a case that, fortunately, is not the most common and that is why it monopolizes the media so much, and in this sense it calls for no sensationalism in the dissemination of such facts.
Doctors said similar cases have occurred elsewhere in the world, such as in the United States, where Andrea Yate from Texas suffered from delirium in 2001, similar to Dr. Ana Garcia, and drowned her five children in the bathtub. In 2004, a woman cut her 10-year-old son’s throat, and when they reviewed her medical history, she suffered from bipolar disorder and had recently recovered from a psychotic episode with a loss of touch with reality. Previously called madness.
“When we look at this doctor’s video, what we see is very disorganized behavior, even apathy in the face of the events that occurred, and obviously, until proven otherwise, I would consider this to be schizophrenia, or an acute psychosis “Obviously, but it is the forensic psychiatrists under the direction of the Attorney General’s Office who are going to be in charge of this work, and they are going to really reveal what this lady is like in terms of her mental health,” the doctor explained.
He added, “The person may be suffering from delusional disorder, whereas a patient with this trait, i.e. having false ideas about what is happening in the environment, may appear like a normal person.”
“Note that this individual’s delirium was clearly more related to religious issues, other than that he seemed to be more functioning, and certainly his family and close military colleagues must be interviewed to determine if they saw or noticed any changes that came to their attention that would warrant prompt care for that lady,” Dr. Figueroa said.
She said it was also possible that an acute stress of such intensity occurred that she had a complete break with reality and caused her to behave in this way.
“It’s not just something that happens over time, sometimes we need something that affects us, that completely disconnects us from reality, and when she comes back, she says, okay, what happened here. I come back and say again, these are inferences, and psychiatric forensic expertise can do a better job of explaining to us what’s going on in the brain,” he insisted.
He suggested that person, whether in jail or not, should already be getting help from a mental health professional because if they have been certified as a patient, they must continue to receive medication, and if not, they must be evaluated before they can receive medication.
He clarified: “Whether he follows the entire legal process or not, ultimately the judge will decide whether he is truly a person with mental disability or not.”
The secretary general of the Dominican Psychiatric Association said that people who commit suicide do not want to die, but to stop suffering.
Dr. Victor Figueroa, secretary general of the Dominican Psychiatric Society, said that Ms. Genesis Lugo and her daughter jumped from the fourth floor of a building in northern Santo Domingo and both lost their lives. In life, she suffered from severe depression.
Figueroa pointed out that many people who commit suicide do not want to die, but want to end their suffering, while clarifying that according to data from the World Health Organization, one person commits suicide every 40 seconds in the world.
“In the case of young Genesis, who threw himself into the void with grief over his daughter, it appears that due to all of the previously described behavior, coupled with this final incident, he was suffering from a severe depression,” the mental health expert insisted.
“Suicide is the regrettable outcome of a psychological condition in which, very often, the person does not want to die, but to stop suffering, and perhaps it was through no fault of the girl, being abused, that could have been a predisposing factor for this unfortunate incident,” the doctor clarified.
Dr. Figueroa insisted that all he did was infer because it takes the evaluation and expertise of doctors and psychologists to assess the patient and come up with a definitive diagnosis.
In the case of Lourdes Penélope Pérez, the mother who cut off the scalp of her 7-year-old daughter, the psychiatrist explained that it seemed to be about impulse control and a more sociocultural case, with punishment. The parents applied to the children to “correct them” because, the woman said, “things were getting out of control.”
However, he said Mrs Lourdes needed to be assessed for her impulse control or whether she had any disorders or personality traits that predisposed her to such behaviour.
He said the country needs 800 psychiatrists, but the Psychiatric Association has only 286 doctors in the profession.
Dr. Victor Figueroa said the Dominican Republic is short of about 500 mental health professionals, because for more than 10 million inhabitants, 700 to 800 psychiatrists are needed, while the association that brings them together has only 286 members.
“There are currently 286 psychiatrists in the Dominican Psychiatric Association, and the way mental health issues are addressed in the country has changed since successive governments, but there is still a long way to go, remember that we have about 10 million people and we are talking about that in a population like this we need between 700 and 800 doctors in this specialty,” the doctor explained.
He clarified that it is not only about having the required numbers but also about understanding how to distribute these professionals because many doctors of any specialty are reluctant to go to faraway or border towns, not just because of financial issues, but also because of the need to understand what these communities have provided you as you grew up as a family.
“This is a reality experienced not only in the Dominican Republic, but in many countries on the continent. We have 17 crisis intervention centers in the country, and when patients with acute mental disorders are found, they are taken to hospitals. Stabilized and discharged, but these networks still lack sheltered housing and further expansion until the community is welcomed and sympathetic to understand how to work with mental health patients from this community,” he pointed out.
Dr. Figueroa justifies the closure of Hospital 28 or Asylum in order to expand the field of psychiatry and mental health into the hospital so that people will not be subject to the previous stigma.
“Some people disagree with the closure on the 28th, but it is definitely a big step forward because we demolished a warehouse for people with mental disorders, because some people suggested that we first expand the network and then close it, but the fact is that having it does not provide any type of guarantee,” he explained.
He defines Shelter No. 28 as the Trujillo model of mental health, a model that has only changed in eight years, but which requires greater commitment and continued work so that when misfortunes such as those that have been experienced in the country in the past few weeks occur, mental health problems are no longer a trend, but a constant.
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