Dr. Priya Persaud

Dr. Priya Persaud is a consultant psychiatrist at Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) — Guyana's national referral hospital and the country's principal academic medical centre. With 15 years of psychiatric experience, she is one of Guyana's most experienced psychiatrists — a specialty in which the workforce is extremely limited relative to population need.

Guyana has significant mental health challenges: the country has historically had very high suicide rates (among the highest in the world by WHO data), a significant burden of alcohol and substance use disorders, high rates of major depression — particularly in lower-income communities — and limited mental health infrastructure outside the capital. Dr. Persaud is a key advocate for mental health awareness and suicide prevention in Guyana, working with the government and NGOs on public mental health initiatives.

She trained in the United Kingdom, completing the Diploma in Psychological Medicine (DPM) and obtaining Membership of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (MRCPsych) — the UK's primary postgraduate credential in psychiatry — before returning to Guyana. She is a founding member of the Caribbean Psychiatric Association and contributes to regional mental health policy development.

Dr. Persaud completed her medical degree at the University of Guyana Faculty of Health Sciences. She undertook psychiatry training in the United Kingdom, completing the Diploma in Psychological Medicine (DPM) and passing the MRCPsych examinations, becoming a Member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. She completed advanced training in child and adolescent psychiatry and substance misuse management. She has completed WHO Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP) training for the Caribbean region context.

Dr. Persaud's psychiatric practice spans adult, child, and community psychiatry. She conducts comprehensive psychiatric assessments for new and complex referrals, managing schizophrenia spectrum disorders, mood disorders (MDD, bipolar disorder), anxiety disorders, and personality disorders. Her expertise in substance use disorders is particularly important in the Guyanese context, where alcohol misuse and increasingly cocaine and cannabis use disorders present complex comorbidities with depression and psychosis.

Her child and adolescent psychiatry work addresses childhood depression, ADHD, trauma-related disorders, and early-onset psychosis. She provides suicide risk assessment and crisis management for high-risk patients and is involved in developing Guyana's community mental health model — expanding mental health services beyond the hospital setting to primary care through mhGAP training for non-specialist health workers.

Dr. Persaud consults in English, Hindi, and Caribbean Creole. GPHC serves Guyana's ethnically and linguistically diverse population — including Indo-Guyanese, Afro-Guyanese, and Amerindian communities. Her Hindi language skills are particularly valuable for the significant Indo-Guyanese community. The Guyanese diaspora in the USA, Canada, and the UK often consults Guyanese-trained psychiatrists for culturally informed mental health care. Video psychiatric consultations in English are available for diaspora patients, subject to local prescribing regulations.

Dr. Persaud received the Guyana Medical Association Award for contribution to mental health services. She is a founding executive member of the Caribbean Psychiatric Association. She has been involved in WHO mhGAP implementation in Guyana and has contributed to Caribbean mental health policy through Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) workshops. She has published on Guyana's suicide burden and on substance use disorder management in the Caribbean context.