#SAVENCMH

While the Mental Health Act does aim for deinstitutionalization and greater focus on community-based mental health services, not channelling full support for tertiary centers for mental health without ensuring adequate investment in community-based services will lead to more people with serious mental health conditions going in and out of unequipped emergency rooms as “revolving-door” service users. Another anticipated consequence is an increase in people with serious mental health conditions discharged without sufficient links to community-based services, who tuen end up wandering the streets and become targets for violence and abuse. Thus, we strongly do not agree with the proposal of building a general hospital inside NCMH. We believe that this will deviate the services being offered by NCMH from its current mandate of providing mental health services. This expansion of function of NCMH is also not in line with the recently passed RA 11036 or the Philippine Mental Health Law which sets a clear framework to address the mental health situation in the country where NCMH is mandated with the invaluable task of being the training and research hub for mental, psychosocial, and neurological services.

Reviewing further the Implementing Rules and Regulations of RA 11036 which states,
“The National Center for Mental Health shall:
a) Coordinate with stakeholders in the formulation of a research agenda for mental and neurological health and contribute to the national unified health research agenda;
b) Collaborate with government agencies as well as local and international academic institutions and other agencies to undertake and publish research on mental and neurological health;
c) Develop research-based local models of care to effect the best health outcomes encompassing both physical and mental health;
d) Reorientation of its present program as an institution providing predominantly clinical service, to a facility primarily designed to serve the needs for training, education and research;
e) Develop a program that provides a balance of hospital-based care and strengthened community-based mental health care, collaborating actively with other mental health facilities in the communities;
f) Design appropriate and relevant capacity-building programs for various mental health providers in coordination or collaboration with academic institutions, professional organization or non- government organizations to render its program inclusive especially in MH programs with collaborating sectors at all levels; and
g) Act as Repository of Researches pertaining to Mental Health governed by the guidelines approved by the DOH.

We wonder how the NCMH can possibly fulfill its primary mandate when it takes on another gargantuan task of managing a general hospital, when the bed capacity supposedly for psychiatric patients will be used to cater to patients with medical concerns, and when the funds supposedly for mental health will be shared with the general hospital?

The proposed HB 5870 is a threat to the realization of the aspirations of the long- fought Philippine Mental Health Law. It is inconsistent the interest of the people with mental health conditions and the general public. It is against the development of the National Center for Mental Health as the premier training, research, and service facility for mental health.

We stand in solidarity with the call of the psychiatrists of the National Center for Mental Health to block any preemptive actions under HB 5870 and the impeding bill to rename NCMH to the Philippine Center for Wellness and General Hospital.

We call on the members of the civil society, mental health professionals and the organizations, and fellow travelers in the mental health advocacy to join the call in blocking the plan to convert NCMH to a general hospital. Let’s save NCMH! #SaveNCMH