Mental health in COVID times
World Mental Health Day on 10 October is an opportunity to re-address the importance of mental health, which is one of the most neglected areas of public health. Globally, close to one billion people are living with a mental disorder, yet there is still little awareness regarding mental illness and it is still stigmatised. Mental health is a human right and this year’s global campaign, Move for mental health: let’s invest, encourages public action to scale-up investment in mental health.
From our Project Manager – Mental Health, Prasansa Subba:
“At present with the ongoing global COVID-19 crisis, conducting community activities for UMN in person remains a challenge, so we are more focused on building the technical capacity of our partner staff. And considering the emotional fatigue and stress of frontline workers, we have conducted several rounds of self-care sessions with the health workers from our project implementing areas.
“In the initial days (before lockdown), our trained psychosocial workers visited quarantine centres to deliver psychosocial support. Two psychosocial workers in Rupandehi particularly have been incessantly supporting health facilities from mid-March till date. We are also spreading information about COVID-19 and its impact on psychosocial and mental wellbeing through printed materials and radio jingles. Concurrently, we have given support to increase income generation, since economic loss has been a key impact of the pandemic, increasing the risk and incidence of mental ill health.”
Click here to read a story of how Lali, a 48-year-old single lady, survived through her mental health ordeal.
