Karachi (Urdu Times) Caretaker Minister Health, Sindh, Dr Saad Niaz held a meeting with representatives of Pakistan Institute of Living and Learning (PILL) including CEO Prof. Nasim Chaudhary took place at the Emergency Operation Center (EOC).
The meeting was informed of the need for mental health services in the province as due to the 2022 Floods, there has been huge impact on the mental health of the province rising costs of living, inflation etc. PILL has developed a curriculum that involves either very little to zero literacy as it includes pictures that can allow the parents to identify their own anxiety and depression. PILL has delivered this through apps and telehealth where cost effectiveness has been proven, and these services have been provided to the parents of children with development issues.
Nurses and LHWs curriculum should be tailored to this multi morbidity culturally adapted intervention that enables them to identify the cultural context of the ways in which depression and anxiety show up in people.
It was also emphasised that there should be a mental health registry that records attempted and completed suicide, especially in regions where it is a regular occurrence.
There need to be more psychologists especially at district and BHU level that understand the community and are available to them.
PPHI was suggested as party that can take up this task, as their recruitment process is robust, rapid & efficient.
3000 Community Health Workers have been trained under this project and in ‘Learning through Play’ which is also a parenting programme so that the future generations have a better approach and understanding of mental health in themselves and the people around them. 1943 of these Community Health Workers have been trained across Sindh in Umerkot, Hyderabad, Tharparkar, Shaheed Benazirabad, and Karachi.
Self harm is a major part of the indicators of mental health that PILL are measuring, and in 11,000 households, rates of self harm were surveyed. Pakistan does not report rates of self harm or suicides to WHO so there needs to be a registry that keeps record of this so that solutions can be worked towards.
Dr. Saad Niaz also added that suicide prevention guidelines have been made, so these should be published and then publicised on tv. If suicide has been decriminalised then it needs to promoted especially on morning shows.
Burns rehabilitation is multidimensional and PILL wants to work with burns centres where the Minister Health recommended that it should be compulsory to report all burns cases and send the health Department the list of all the facilities where notice of this record keeping needs to be sent out.
PILL informed the meeting that substance misuse is a societal ill that is affecting us a lot. Along with the police, ANF and PILL there is desire to implement awareness and treatment of substance misuse with the ‘Strong families’ program that PILL are testing out.
Universities should be part of this consortium ICUDDR about substance misuse and letters will be written to universities to become part of this; universities commission has to come on board with this initiative.
Task force on substance misuse should be created to tackle this tangent of mental health.
