COVID-19 has thrown many curveballs to our lives, and one that has gained traction is mental health awareness. The pandemic complicates the challenges of mental health, which is still a hush-hush topic to talk about in our society. The society associates mental health with the most extreme cases, like suicide or mania.
We are adjusting our day-to-day lives with the “new normal” which revolves around social distancing, remote learning/working, and quarantining. This has triggered some severe cases such as attempting suicides (with over 1300 suicide cases since the lockdown) whereas, for others, it has triggered conditions like anxiety, social isolation, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorders.
Dr. Kamal Gautam, executive director at Transcultural Psychosocial Organization stated,
”During high-stress situations like pandemics, natural disasters and wars, mental health problems are known to affect people.”
He further emphasized on how the cases could explode, given that Nepalis face stress, along with mass unemployment, business meltdowns, recession, and social isolation. A survey conducted by the same organization revealed findings of how migrant returnees coming from India and other parts of the world who had spent weeks stranded in lockdown and now staying in quarantine facilities alone without family support are at high risk of suffering from mental health disorders.
As the findings suggested, the suicide rate of people staying in quarantine facilities is skyrocketing leaving mental health experts baffled with the fear of widespread mental health crisis. Given the fact that Nepalese society is unaware or less educated about mental health importance and challenges, we are ill-prepared.
COVID-19 has given us the opportunity to talk about these major or even minor mental health struggles we all are sharing at the moment. Humans often defy the mere existence of mental distress by thinking we are immune to this illness or with thoughts like ”I can never be mentally ill” burying it down until we reach a tipping point and resort to extreme outlets. It’s high time that we talk about it and democratize mental health.
How can we change the system?
Although the federal government has received over Rs 1.59 billion as Corona Relief Fund from various organizations, there’s only a little or zero allotments for mental health. Health care workers face acute stress, sleep-deprivation, and anxiety with overwhelming schedules, while most of the infected patients need to deal with the fear of death, loneliness, and post-traumatic depression. The worst-case-scenario here is we have limited help; 180 psychiatrists, 35 clinical psychologists, and 1,000 psychosocial counselors in Nepal and they are doing their best to transition their practice online.
A health worker at Kailali quarantine facility reported that the patients are showing unusual behaviors like withdrawn/silence, babbling alone, loud crying, and several suicide attempts. With the existing health workers shortage problem, the ones available are not being able to control the situation as they are not trained in mental counseling. It’s best if the local and central government craft a policy right away and order basic counseling training for all the health workers serving at those quarantine centers. For this, they can conduct a weekly virtual training session for starters and deploy professional counselors at every quarantine center as a sustainable response.
It is imperative to make approaches including resiliency and stress management skill training mandatory, not just for clinical practitioners, but for everyone in the community. Further, we can use social media and other connecting platforms to spread a word out that help is available 24/7 at the expense of just a text or a call. Anyone can create a group or a page on Facebook to help in-need and track mental illness symptoms.
The aftermath of the pandemic shows it will have lasting mental health challenges for which we need a national-level response right now. Private and governmental suicide prevention and mental health centers can form an action alliance and mobilize diverse sectors to lead an effective, managed mental health and suicide prevention response. Mental health clinicians can deliver effective counseling via teletherapy or video conferencing tools like Zoom. We can push advertisements, television programs, and podcasts related to mental health via radio broadcasts or YouTube or any means of platform time to time to spread awareness. In the long run, schools and colleges should integrate basic and advanced counseling training programs or diploma courses for pass-out students and bridge the manpower of the supply and demand gap in the nation.
We need to make everyone aware — from the grassroots to the literate population, because everyone can play a vital role in this fight. We cannot turn a blind eye to a need for a system that addresses all dimensions of mental health. The government should increase investments and allocate enough budget in the mental health sector and plan to build psychology schools and centers, providing quality mental health services to flatten the curve.
If you have suicidal thoughts, contact one of these centers for help:
TUTH, Maharajgunj Suicide Hotline: 9840021600
Patan Hospital has a 24-hour crisis helpline: 9813476123
Transcultural Psychosocial Organization-Nepal Crisis Hotline: 16600102005
