Mental health woes: DOH-7 urges public to call hotlines when they need help

This is a stock photo depicting a depressed person of Inquirer.net. | File photo

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Department of Health in Central Visayas encourages those, who feel down or depressed or who want someone to talk to, to call the health agency’s hotlines (see photo for the hotline numbers) and seek help.

Dr. Eugenia Mercedes Cañal, regional epidemiologist of the Regional Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit of DOH, said on Tuesday, October 10, that the agency had a program for mental health and that would be the Tawag Paglaum program.

It is a program that is for crisis intervention and suicide prevention.

READ: Break the stigma: Coping with mental health issues

Depressed? Call DOH-7 hotlines

In a news forum on Tuesday, October 10, which also celebrated Mental Health Day, Cañal said that people who would want to seek help could freely call their hotlines and there will be psychometricians who could cater to them.

“For those who would want to talk to when feeling down or depressed, or [when] we just want to air out our sentiments because we cannot just run to anybody if we feel uncomfortable ranting it out with our friends, naa ta’y hotline (we have a hotline),” Cañal said.

Aside from DOH-7, she said that Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) also had a hotline for those who would seek help.

Here are the hotlines or numbers or the Department of Health in Central Visayas (DOH-7) and Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) that persons who feel down or depressed can call and find experts who can help ease what they are feeling. | Photo of poster with hotlines is Courtesy of DOH-7

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Free 24/7 based hotlines

Tawag Paglaum Centro Bisaya (Cebu) is a program by DOH-7 and VSMMC that provides free 24/7 call-based hotline for those with suicide and emotional crisis.

The people who would be calling these hotlines would be catered by experts and the latter would be there to listen to them.

These experts could be the people whom they could share what they are going through, especially when feeling alone and insignificant in the world, which is the common feeling that people might experience when having a mental breakdown, said Cañal.

“Wala lang siya siguro kaayo na advocate but our program is very active as well in advocating with the different government agencies as well as the LGUs (local government units), so it has a collaboration cutting across all the sectors in the nation and in the region,” she said.

READ: Mental Health Day: The need to defuse a ticking time bomb for millions

Ensuring improvement of person’s condition

Cañal said that these health professionals or experts would ensure the improvement of the person’s condition after they sought help because they would followup on these persons.

“They [experts] followed it up, because once you call, maregister naman ang number. As long as katong nagtawag dili magchange na pod og number,” she said.

(They [experts] followed it up, because once you call, your number would register to the the phone that the person seeking help, had called. And as long as the person who called would not change the person’s number.)

Cañal added that it would be better for the person who sought assistance to not change their number so they would know that the person really sought consultation with the experts.

She said that the consultation would be done only through a phone call, not a video call.

If the instance would happen that the experts could observe that the person would be suicidal, Cañal said the experts could refer them to private institutions or to a safeway house for treatment.