A QUEZON City councilor on Monday pushed health centers to ensure the mental health awareness of residents in their area.
District 1 Councilor Peter Anthony “Onyx” Crisologo said the city must ensure the community-based mental health program of 2015 is implemented in the absence of a national mental health law.
The city’s health centers, he said, must be able to provide mental health care, services, guidance or medicine to help patients, and help them “have productive, quality and livable lives.”
On Oct. 29, 2015, the councilor passed the Community-Based Mental Health Program Ordinance to promote a shift from a hospital-based system to a strengthened community-based mental health-care delivery system.
The ordinance aims to integrate mental health in the general health-care system, to pinpoint a multisectoral joint network to identify and prevent mental illness or disability, and the management of mental health problems among vulnerable groups in the population.
The measure includes those affected by overseas employment, children, adolescents, elderly, and those who need special protection, like survivors of extreme life experiences and violence.
Crisologo said mental health concerns and awareness must be an open issue to better prepare one to deal with traumatic experiences, stressful situations and even violence.
He called on those who may need mental health care to come out and seek professional help.
The city’s health officer, Dr. Verdades Linga said the community-based mental health program underscored the importance of developing a system and mechanism designed to provide an efficient and effective delivery of mental health-care to city’s three million constituents, especially the poor.