ISLAMABAD, July 5 (APP): President Dr Arif Alvi Monday said the establishment of telehealth centers was essential to ensure availability of mental health care and provide advice to the people on mental health problems.
The president, during a presentation given to him on mental health issues, called for focusing on mental health by chalking out an effective implementable plan to help address the issue of mental health.
Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs Andleeb Abbas, who also heads Task Force on Mental Health gave the presentation to the president at Aiwan-e-Sadr.
The meeting was also attended by Professor Dr Rizwan Taj, Professor Dr Mowadaat Hussain Rana, Ms Cristina Von Sperling Afridi, other members of the task force and senior government officials.
Addressing the meeting, the president said that the importance of mental health had been ignored in the past which rather needed to be given special attention to overcome the mental health challenge.
He urged the need to devise a multi-pronged strategy by involving psychologists, media and teachers to guide the people and students about the issues related to mental health.
The meeting proposed to train the teachers by the psychologists to sensitize the students with regard to mental health care.
The participants emphasized the need to train more human resource and provide specialized services to address the growing challenge of mental health.
It was emphasized to create awareness among people about issues related to mental health through media.
