EDITORIAL - Mental health in a pandemic

With no vaccine or cure in sight for the coronavirus disease 2019, people are focused on protecting public health and economic health. But there is another health aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic that isn’t getting enough attention: mental wellness.

Around the world, health professionals are reporting a spike in mental problems since people were forced into lockdowns at home to contain the pandemic and millions lost their livelihoods. This is apart from the suffering of those who lost loved ones to COVID-19 or who were themselves infected with the coronavirus.

In the Philippines, suicide prevention hotlines have reported a doubling of calls for help since March when Metro Manila and the rest of Luzon were placed under enhanced community quarantine. The calls for help cut across age groups, from youths to senior citizens, according to mental health advocates.

Philippine society has traditionally paid little attention to mental wellness, even as suicides continue to rise especially among the youth. The focus on public health during the pandemic provides an opportunity to give special attention to mental wellness and the full implementation of Republic Act 11036 or the Mental Health Act, which was signed into law on June 20, 2018. The implementing rules for RA 11036 were released last year.

Under the rules, community-based mental health care facilities must be set up apart from hospitals dedicated to mental health so that counseling and other services can be accessed at the grassroots. The community facilities can be set up in outpatient care centers, for example, or even in halfway houses.

All regional, provincial and tertiary hospitals are mandated to provide psychiatric, psychosocial and neurologic services, including hotlines and other mechanisms for suicide prevention, with special attention on the youth. Over two years, mental health subjects will be included in the school curriculum and mental health programs must be integrated into the education system as well as workplaces.

Under the law, those seeking mental health services are assured of privacy as well as protection from stigma and discrimination. Barangay personnel will be given training for community-based mental health promotion, and to act as first responders in emergency cases. The Philippine Council for Mental Health is tasked to develop a national multisectoral strategic plan for mental health promotion. The mental health problems now emerging amid the COVID pandemic should give urgency to the full implementation of the Mental Health Act.