Policy Recommendations

C-9: Psychological Impact in the Time of COVID-19 and its Implications for Sustainable Development
  • The world may never be the same again, however, if people use their skills and knowledge and collect data, there will be endless opportunities, improvements and developments within reach which might have taken decades to be developed and be made available had it not been for COVID- 19.
  • COVID Related Psychological Responses (CRPR) is not major mental illness. we should be very careful about calling it mental illness. It does not need full force psychiatric treatment. Focus needs to be on treatment for trauma and adjustment disorder. Health departments can offer specialist treatment outside regular mental health services
  • If CRPR is treated within mental health services, there is a risk of services becoming overwhelmed, misdiagnosis and overdiagnosis, unnecessary and wrong treatment, restricted access to services, iatrogenic damage and long- term dependency on mental health services.
  • There is need to involve auxillary services such as social and voluntary services that provide employment and financial advice.
  • Health practitioners should make a distinction between general mental illness and COVID-related mental health responses.
  • People with existing mental illness are more vulnerable for developing COVID-related mental health problems, but they should be treated within general mental health services.
  • It is essential to retain access to regular mental health services for people with existing mental health problems or non-COVID related mental health problems to prevent a similar situation as with the regular health services and post-COVID backlog.
  • To prevent COVID overriding current healthcare systems, structure patient groups and patient needs: patients with existing mental health problems; patients who develop mental health problems unrelated to COVID; patients who develop mental health problems because of COVID: COVID-related psychological responses (CRPR).
  • There is no need to medicalize the anxieties of people. Anxiety and fear are perfectly normal reactions to the situation posed by COVID-19. People should learn to listen, support and act.
  • The National Command and Operation Centre needs to also include mental health professionals for a joint, coordinated effort that integrates doctors as well as civil society to provide much needed support to communities at the grass roots level.
  • The government’s messaging regarding COVID-19 needs to be clear, empathetic and supportive.
  • Social scaffolding is needed before Pakistan evolves country-wide systems for health. A forward-looking approach to designing healthcare that fully incorporates social factors should be an important focus of future interventions.
  • The relevant stakeholders working on mental health issues need to generate objective information and credible data because this is an area with dearth of information.
  • There is a need to support initiatives based on the volunteer programs like Mera Ghar, Mera School - a volunteer initiative in Balochistan.
  • The relationship between mental health and human rights is three-fold: human rights violations lead to higher probability of mental health symptoms; malpractice and mistreatment in mental health can have severe, negative impacts on human rights; and greater protection of human rights can mutually benefit protections extended to those with mental health illnesses, who in some cases may be unable to successfully assert their human rights at a time when those rights are most vulnerable to being breached.
  • In Pakistan, mental health has never enjoyed parity with physical health - not in terms of financial budgeting, laws, education or practice, despite increased levels of mental well-being having been internationally acknowledged as a prerequisite for individuals to reach their full potential - ultimately enabling greater social development. It is the state’s duty to provide services necessary to maintain good mental health.
  • Not only women, children, too, are facing domestic abuse during the health crisis. Governments, with the support of local NGOs, can work on prevention of violence and access to essential services, such as health, justice and policing, social services, helplines and coordination of these services, to provide support to those who have experienced and/or witnessed violence.
  • The government should issue public service announcements with the message that violence against women and girls will not be tolerated during the pandemic and perpetrators will face severe consequences.
  • The government should provide urgent and flexible funding to civil society and women’s rights organizations so that they do not have to worry about funding constraints and can continue working towards building solidarity with grass-roots communities to reduce opportunities for the exploitation and abuse of women and children.