PHCC launches Integrated Mental Health Service at Al Thumama Center

Doha: Under the frame of Qatar National Vision 2030 and National Health Strategy 2018-2022, Primary Health Care Corporation has launched ‘Integrated Mental Health Service’ which is a new community service starting at Al Thumama Health Center tomorrow as a pilot and will be later gradually available in other HCs.

This service is also serving one of the aims of the ‘National Health Strategy’ that the primary care in Qatar must provide by 2020 what is equal of 20% of the mental health services currently provided in hospitals.

This new service aims to provide full mental health services such as diagnosing and preparing full treatment plans and follow-up plans for patients who used to be refereed earlier to HMC’s Psychiatry Hospital. The service feature integrated mental care and improved patient experience and clinical results, and this will also lead into a decreased appointment waiting time in secondary care.

The service will accept internal referrals from Al Thumama, Airport, Umm Ghuwailina, Al Wakra, and Mesaimeer health centers in the initial stage.

The worldwide conducted researches during past thirty years indicated that there is a huge increase of mental health issues among children and youth group such as anxiety, depression, eating disorder and self-harm. Over 70% of children and youth are suffering from mental health issues because of lack of medical intervention at early age. Considering that a good mental health for children and youth allow them to develop their skills and to be flexible to life challenges. Out of this scope, PHCC focused on providing this service via 27 health centres covering all demographic distribution in Qatar. PHCC provide integrated non-urgent mental health services to patients with light to medium mental health cases.

PHCC is always keen on providing a patient-focused services, therefore PHCC provided training for over 500 of its clinical staff and 1800 nurses during the past periods to have full awareness and clinical proficiency to identify and diagnose symptoms and manage the common mental issues such as anxiety depression and mental health diseases.

PHCC also launched its ‘Support Clinic’ within 5 health centers at Leabaib, Rawdat Al Khail, Al Thumama, Al Wajbah and Qatar University HCs. This was achieved by a collaborative work between several community entities under the ‘Better Together’ initiative. The mental health services at health centres “i.e. Support Clinic” include the early diagnose and clinical checkup via skilled and highly trained physicians who identify and evaluate the level of mental cases between light to medium, and all physicians can identify the common mental health symptoms and provide consultations for it and even make required internal referrals to the Support Clinics and issue prescriptions.

It is worth mentioning that PHCC screened 332,444 patients visits during 2018 compared with 18,633 in 2017, this number included 180,094 females (54% of total) and 152,350 males (46% of total). Over 6,351 cases were identified with light to medium anxiety and depression factors, of which 3,438 were anxiety cases and 2,913 have depression factors, and all these cases were managed properly and 1496 cases were referred to secondary care.

قامت مؤسسة الرعاية الصحية الأولية بإنشاء «عيادة خدمات الدعم النفسي المتكاملة»، وهي خدمة مجتمعية جديدة ستُشغّل تجريبياً في مركز الثمامة الصحي ابتداء من غد الثلاثاء، على أن تُطبّق مستقبلاً بشكل تدريجي في باقي المراكز المتخصصة.

ويأتي ذلك ضمن تحقيق وتطبيق أهداف الاستراتيجية الوطنية للصحة، والتي من ضمن أهدافها تقديم 20 % من خدمات الصحة النفسية المقدّمة من خلال المستشفيات، عن طريق الرعاية الصحية الأولية بحلول عام 2020.

وهذه الخدمة الجديدة تهدف إلى توفير وتقديم خدمات شاملة للصحة النفسية، من تشخيص ووضع خطط علاجية شاملة للمرضى ومتابعتهم، وهي الحالات التي كانت تُحوّل من قبل إلى مستشفى الطب النفسي التابع لمؤسسة حمد الطبية. وتشمل مزايا الخدمة تقديم رعاية صحية نفسية متكاملة، وتحسين تجربة المريض والنتائج السريرية، والذي سيؤدي بدوره إلى تقليل أوقات الانتظار لتحديد موعد في مستشفيات الرعاية الثانوية.

وتستقبل هذه العيادة -مرحلة أولى- التحويلات من كل من مراكز الثمامة، والمطار، وأم غويلينة، والوكرة، ومسيمير.

وقامت مؤسسة الرعاية الصحية الأولية بتدريب أكثر من 500 طبيب من كوادرها الطبية و1800 ممرض وممرضة خلال الفترات الماضية، ليصبحوا على وعي تام ولديهم القدرة والمهارة الإكلينيكية لتحديد الأعراض وإدارة الأمراض النفسية الشائعة، كالاكتئاب، والقلق، والعوامل المتعلقة بالصحة النفسية.

وتتضمن خدمات الصحة النفسية بالمراكز الصحية (عيادات الدعم): التشخيص المبكر، والفحص الطبي بواسطة أطباء مؤهلين ومدربين تدريباً عالياً، حيث يقومون بتحديد وتقييم مشاكل الصحة النفسية الخفيفة والمتوسطة.;