Health ministry condemns viral video

The Ministry of Health is dismissing claims that a violent viral video of what appears to be an employee attacking and beating a patient took place at the country’s sole public mental institution.
The video, which has been making the rounds on social media for over a week shows an individual beating a person when a second person rushes to the side of the patient who is being beaten with a piece of stick.
And, over the weekend, several people on social media said that the incident took place at Clarevue Psychiatric Hospital in Antigua.
But in a release to the media on Monday, the Ministry of Health said that no such incident, as displayed on the said video, occurred at Clarevue, neither in recent times nor in the past.
The ministry condemned that use of social media, for what they are calling wanton and malicious misinformation, as irresponsible.
The Ministry of Health in its message to the public, especially the families of the patients of Clarevue, said the management and staff of the institution will continue to administer the best possible care and treatment to their loved ones.
“It is not the policy of the Clarevue to resort to barbarism and to inflict beatings on the men and women resident at Antigua and Barbuda’s sole mental institution,” the release stated.