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Now the cases of the mentally deranged, while not uncommon to Belize, is a very complicated matter to say the least. So today we spoke to several professionals in the field of mental health in hopes of clearing the waters a bit, and find out just what could have gone so wrong to trigger the mass chopping.

Eleanor Bennet, Coord, Mental Health Services, MOH
"We have dealt with situations like this before. Not often, but we do meet people who, because of their mental illness and drug use, are very violent. What happens in those cases is that we always get the help of the police. Once that service is done and there's a threat, usually the police would bring them to the clinic for treatment. The staff will do the assessment and if the person needs any kind of treatment, it will be given. If the person needs an admission, that can also happen, and that is there's several things we have to take into consideration before we admit a person. The admission can either be at the level of the district hospital if the person is manageable. If the person is not manageable, too agitated then we can move that person to our acute unit in Belmopan which is not preferred because the person will not have family support, but if we have to do that, we will. Usually you get this kind of behavior when somebody has an issue but is not receiving treatment. So I just want to be very clear that the majority of the people that have mental illnesses are not violent. The research will say between 5-15% of everybody diagnosed with mental disorder have violent tendencies. That means that about 95% of the people with a mental health problem is not violent."

Emanuel Pech
"I know there's a lot of dimensions to mental instabilities, but what sort of treatments do patients usually get?"

Monica Elijio, Psychiatric Nurse, Port Loyola Health
"It all has to do with whatever symptoms the person is presenting with and after doing an assessment then the treatment will be based on the assessment done on the client."

Emanuel Pech
"Is it a continuous problem for you all here at the clinic as well as other clinics whereby patients refuse to take their medications? And what is done then?"

Monica Elijio, Psychiatric Nurse, Port Loyola Health
"We do have some and this is why we have a program set up that we call a community treatment program for the ones who normally don't come to the clinic. We have a nurse along with attendants who go out into the community to treat the ones who would normally not come into the clinic. We do have people like the other clients who come willingly."

Cathy Esquivel, Secretary, Mental Health Assoc.
"One of the things we try and reach out is to try and decrease stigma and discrimination, because sometimes families feel ashamed that their relative has a mental health issue. It's because of that stigma that maybe, I don't know this case, but maybe people don't reach out, because what will the neighbors think? And so what we work very hard for is to reduce the stigma just like you're not ashamed if you have a family member with a heart problem. There's no reason to feel ashamed if you have a family member with a mental health problem."

Eleanor Bennet, Coord, Mental Health Services, MOH
"I don't know exactly where things went wrong in this case in particular, but at any of those points things could have gone wrong. It could have gone wrong where because it might be a diagnosis of mental disorder, not taking the threat seriously, it could be that they have asked for help from the police for detention of this person and it didn't happen. It could be that maybe they went to the services and the type of treatment we offer does not work for this person, maybe the person did not take the medication or maybe the medication did not work because of drug use. It's really hard to tell what went wrong."

But something did go terribly wrong, and unfortunately that has now led to the death of 13 year old Danny Choc, the maiming of Moises Pech and left several others scarred for life. 35 year old Larry Banner was remanded to prison until the 31st of August.