Monday, October 30, 2006 Editorial: Minding mental health
CEBU’S campaign to round up psychotic vagrants wandering around its streets betrays anew the superficiality of its preparations for December’s international summit, as well as the public’s cosmetic handling of mental health.
According to Sun.Star Cebu’s Oct. 26, 2006 story by Jujemay G. Awit, Cebu City sends the mentally ill to the psychiatric ward of the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC).
The problem is that the state-run facility already exceeds its capacity of 60 patients, with more than a 100 now being accommodated. According to the psychiatric ward chief Dr. Renato Obra, sustaining treatment is also a problem.
During a dyLA interview, Obra said the VSMMC psychiatric ward can keep a patient for only five days, clean him or her up, feed and start medication “so they will be less of an eyesore once they roam the streets.”
Implicit in Obra’s revelation is that the state-run facility can only undertake a “revolving door” palliative policy that barely addresses psychotic vagrancy, let alone mental health.
Critical
“Mental health is a low priority project of the government, perhaps because this has no return on investment unlike the other programs.”
In an Oct. 23, 2006 report, Sun.Star Baguio’s Jane Cadalig quoted the Philippine Mental Health Association (PMHA) Baguio-Benguet chapter’s Dr. Gilda Wong as urging government to fund a scientific study determining the state of depression in the country.
By 2020, depression will be the second leading cause of disability in the world, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In 2000, depression was ranked as the fourth major cause of disability.
WHO officials said the mental health problem does not only involve an increase in cases of depression and misperceptions preventing sufferers from seeking treatment. If untreated, depression drives individuals to suicide.
WHO puts suicide as the third leading cause of death among adolescents worldwide. The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH) assessed that “adolescent mental health issues are relatively understudied, particularly in the developing world, where over one billion 10- to 19-year-olds live.”
One of these studies focused on Filipino teenagers. Results of the study by Dr. Michelle Hindin of JHSPH and Dr. Socorro Gultiano of the University of San Carlos show that the most vulnerable to depression and suicide are adolescents witnessing domestic violence at home.
Teen suicide
Using data from 2,051 men and women aged 17 to 19, collected in the 2002 Cebu Longitudinal Health Nutrition Survey, Hindin and Gultiano found that nearly half of all young people witnessed parental domestic violence. One in 10 of the males and one in five of females wished they were dead occasionally or most of the time.
The same study found that young women reported the most depressive symptoms when they saw a victimized parent needing medical attention. Young men were driven to depression after witnessing mutual violence between parents.
The Hindin-Gultiano study defines depressive symptoms as “headaches, poor digestion, worry, loneliness, trouble sleeping and thoughts about death or taking one’s own life.”
The PMHA has also spoken out on the need for teachers to help promote their students’ mental well-being. According to Sun.Star Dumaguete’s Victor L. Camion in his Oct. 21, 2006 report, the PMHA’s Dr. Betsy Joy Tan pointed out that elementary students are already stressed by numerous class assignments and tight deadlines.
“This is why we have asked the teachers that if it’s possible, they can reduce the load of projects and assignments at school and give students enough time to beat deadlines,” Tan told Sun.Star.
Better parents
Because spousal discord and domestic violence affect the family, mental health interventions should be directed at helping adults cope better.
Higher levels of stress are caused by today’s necessity for multiple employment and multi-tasking for financial security. The resulting stress makes adults more prone to mental health ailments like sleeping and eating disorders and alcoholism, according to Dr. Glynda Descuatan of the PMHA Negros Oriental Chapter.
According to the Sun.Star Dumaguete report, adults need to accept responsibility, be objective, tap inner resources, open up to friends, be positive about mistakes, set realistic expectations and attainable goals, trust oneself, and “trust one’s God.”
Mental health experts say that better adjusted adults make better parents. More empathetic and vigilant parents can help their teenagers stay away from drugs, for instance.
The United States’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) urges parents to help keep their teenagers from experimenting with cannabis or marijuana. Although many youths dismiss marijuana as “not as serious as coke (cocaine),” studies in the US, Britain and Netherlands show that smoking marijuana during the teens predisposes one to depression, suicide, and schizophrenia.
The country should move beyond the ceremonial observance of Mental Health Week in October or periodic sweeps to clear streets of psychotic vagrants. The WHO definition of mental health is not just the absence of disease but “physical, financial, social, psychological, emotional and spiritual” well-being.
