Jamaican heads missing jet trauma team

Correction & Clarification

In yesterday’s Gleaner we incorrectly stated that Stephen-Claude Hyatt is a Jamaica College past student. He is a graduate of Calabar High School. We regret the error.

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Shanica Blair, Gleaner Writer

A Jamaican is leading the team in China responsible for trauma therapy in response to the missing Malaysian Airlines plane, Flight MH370.

Stephen-Claude Hyatt, who is a clinical health psychologist and head of the Mental Health Department at International SOS Beijing, which is an international and global medical facility, told The Gleaner that he and his team are currently offering psychological and psychiatric treatment to family members and friends as well as airline staff in one-on-one therapy sessions, group sessions, and public forums.

"Malaysian Airlines is doing a great job in attending to the needs of the family and providing care in this difficult situation," Hyatt said before dashing off to work.

The Calabar High School past student and native of Kingston has a PhD in clinical health psychology, as well as postgraduate diplomas in family therapy, HIV/Aids counselling, and clinical supervision from the University of the West Indies and the Wiesbaden Academy of Psychotherapy in Germany.

Hyatt is a registered member of the American Psychological Association and did internships at the psychiatric ward of the University Hospital of the West Indies and Patricia House, a residential drug-rehabilitation facility on Upper Musgrave Avenue in St Andrew.

He has also lectured medical and clinical students in psychology, previously in Jamaica, and currently, in China.

SEARCH CONTINUES

The Associated Press (AP) reported yesterday that 10 days after the jetliner disappeared, Thailand's military said it saw radar blips that might have been from the missing plane but didn't report it "because we did not pay attention to it".

Search crews from 26 countries, including Thailand, have been looking for the plane, which vanished early March 8 with 239 people aboard en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

AP said frustration was growing among relatives of those on the plane at the lack of progress in the search.

Aircraft and ships have been scouring two giant arcs of territory amounting to the size of Australia - half of it in the remote waters of the southern Indian Ocean.