Mental Health Services | Bermuda Hospitals Board

The Mid-Atlantic Wellness Institute (MWI) is pleased to have a mental health plan for Bermuda.

But we can’t do it alone! Everyone needs to be involved to help people with mental health issues recover, whether you are a client, related to someone with mental health issues, a partner organisation or a member of the Bermuda community. Your involvement, understanding and caring are vital if we are to truly help our friends, colleagues and neighbours recover from mental illness.

MWI is the sole psychiatric hospital in Bermuda. We provide hospital and community-based care in the following areas:

• Mental health/psychiatry
• Intellectual disability
• Substance abuse
• Child and adolescence
• ‘Graduate’ elderly

While MWI has made great progress in deinstitutionalising the population with mental illness in Bermuda, much work remains to be done. The effort to provide care to citizens with mental illness focuses too much of the resources toward institutionalisation and not on a community-based approach. The result has been a ‘revolving door’ of clients being institutionalised and returning to the community to find too little support, then reentering an institution.

MWI has devised an approach that focuses on patient-centred care in the community based on implementing recommendations provided by outside experts as well as following best practices and models of care from the US and UK respectively. This is outlined in our MWI Directorate Plan 2021-2026.

At the heart of our Plan is the “recovery model”. This model ensures that the “I” in communIty has a voice in the mental health plan. The four key goals of the Plan are:

1. Transition outpatient and long term care into the community and close the MWI site in the long term
2. Ensure active patient participation in our services using the recovery model
3. Use a needs-based approach to care that ensures people get care at the right time and place and from the right provider
4. Challenge the stigma and discrimination associated with MWI services

Read more about our mental health plan:

• MWI Directorate Plan 2021-2026
• MWI Directorate Plan 2021-2026 Summary Page

Did you know?

• There is a walk-in clinic at MWI for people who feel they need help from a mental health specialist.
• MWI provides community support to people who have experienced enduring mental illness as they are resettled into various community living settings.

If you need us, we’re here to help. Please do not hesitate to contact us.

Useful Links

• The Mental Health Act Code of Practice outlines what is expected of all registered medical practitioners and other health professionals when treating and caring for patients with a mental disorder.

Other BHB documents you may find helpful:

• MWI Inpatient Handbook
• MWI Outpatient Handbook
• Family Support Group Information
• Mental Health First Aid Course Information and Registration