Clare spearheads mental health awareness in Hela

HEALTH

By TERENCE FRANCIS
THE Hela Provincial Health Authority (PHA) is blessed with a dedicated full time nurse heading its family support centre.
Sr Clare Lembo, the unit manager of the centre, has been leading a transformative initiative to address mental health issues in the community and her approach has been truly groundbreaking. The family support centre under her guidance has adopted a bottom-up strategy, focusing on community engagement and empowerment to create a lasting impact on the mental health landscape of Hela.
The mother of four comes from Hela and holds a nursing diploma from the Vunapope Nursing School in East New Britain also did a Bachelor in Clinical Nursing at the UPNG Medical School and graduated as a mental health nurse last April.
She was recently interviewed after a mental workshop in December last year. Below is part of the interview.

What motivated the selection of topics for the workshop on mental health?
Lembo: Health and wellbeing of staff and patient is every one’s business. There is “no health without mental health”. Mental health is the powerful components of health that controls the physical, spiritual and social part of health and therefore mental health matters in health.

What are the primary objectives of the workshop?
Lembo: The main objective of the workshop is to improve and promote mental health of every health worker so they can effectively function in daily activities resulting in patient care improvement,
Increase productivity, maintain good relationship with patient and health team, effectively implement the laws of health care practice and effective communication to meet the organisation’s goals.

How do you envision the workshop’s content impacting the workplace dynamics at Hela PHA?
Lembo: As a mental health nurse, I think healthcare will only improve if all staff within Hela PHA are trained in mental health. The reason is our mind controls our thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Everything that we see outside of a staff or patient is the manifestation of what is happening in the mind. Staff performance and patients care are very poor because our minds are sick. The mind is our power house to control all the system of our body. When the powerhouse is sick, all systems are sick. We see people not behaving well, poor communication, poor performance, absenteeism from duty etc. because their thinking and feelings are affected.

Could you share an example of a session from the workshop that received particularly positive feedback?
Lembo: A senior health worker among the participants said the training was very useful to him but he is regretting because he has misused his finances, time, work and family life. He wishes if this training was conducted when he was younger so he could be somebody now. He said, ‘because my mind was sick, I could not able to manage myself, my money, time, work and family. I could not able to control my thoughts and feelings results in not behaving well with family and colleagues as well. This training was and opener and encouraged young staff to be serious with the trainings on mental health because it’s good for themselves, their family, patients, colleagues, work and organisation as whole.

What ways did the workshop aim to bridge the gap between clinical practice and community support regarding mental health?
Lembo: Through a bio-psycho-social-spiritual approach. Biopsychosocial spiritual model promotes a more holistic understanding of health and encourages the integration of various therapeutic modalities to support an individual’s overall well- being. This model helps community and health workers to understand why and how illness occur and how to prevent and treat.

How did you approach the engagement of clinical staff and heads during the workshop to ensure active participation?
Lembo: I used adult learning approach to ensure active participation. We used individuals’ life experiences, case scenarios, group discussions and real work experiences regarding mental health in the workplace and family, and these motivates the staff to actively participate in the training.

Were there any unexpected challenges encountered while conducting the workshop? If so, how were they addressed?
Lembo: Mental health is new in Hela and conducting such training like this to staff is also new. Every information that was taught and discussed has to be recorded and documented for future use. The challenges are that we need ICT materials like a camera, and the involvement of Hela PHA ICT team in such activities so they can disseminate the information to top authorities.

Can you highlight any strategies discussed during the workshop to enhance mental health support within the workplace?
Lembo: Strategies discussed included:
Each directorate or hospital to allocate funds for the mental health training to effectively conducted to all Hela PHA staff.
Identify staff in each section to go for mental health trainings as it is a need for every section to have one to deal with mental health issues.
All staff regardless of their titles or qualifications must be trained on mental health to achieve high quality care.

What steps have been outlined to ensure the sustainability of the workshop’s impact post-event?
Lembo: Individuals to assess themselves prior to helping others; practice what was taught at home and workplace; support each other if someone has mental health issues; teach colleagues at the workplace; evaluate each other’s behaviour and performance and correct each other if they are not doing what was taught; and conduct overall yearly assessments on staff trained on mental health.

Were there specific techniques or tools introduced during the workshop that you believe will significantly improve patient care?
Lembo: Holistic approach is the tool every health worker used to improve patient care. Holistic approach includes all aspects of health – physical, mental, social and spiritual. Patients not only came with physical illness. They came with mental, social and spiritual illness too but health care providers only looked at physical and neglecting the three important components of health. That is the whole reason why patients are not improving with the medications because sometimes their sickness to do with mental and spiritual, which needs talk therapy to heal.

Could you describe the role of the family support centre in implementing the workshop’s outcomes within the clinical setting?
Lembo: The major role of the centre is providing medical and psychological care to survivors of family and sexual violence. The integration of mental health and psychosocial care to the centre have helped many patients with psychological trauma and mental health issues. They received fast recovery after providing the holistic care which includes physical, mental, social and spiritual care.

How were the workshop activities tailored to address both the immediate needs and long-term goals of the clinical staff?
Lembo: The training was conducted for Hela Hospital staff specifically to address mental health issues affecting staff, patient, staff performance and patient care in the hospital.
Short term – Staff to assess their mental health status and improve and promote their mental health after the training to be a best care provider physically, mentally, socially and spiritually.
Long-term – All staff will provide holistic care and there will be great improvement in the patients’ care.
What feedback mechanisms were in place to gauge the effectiveness of the workshop’s teachings?

Were there any discussions or sessions that focused on dealing with mental health stigma in the workplace?
Lembo: Yes, most of the staff though that mental health is about being mad or insane. But staff realized that mental illness is just like the physical illness and every one must be treated fairly and equally when they come for health care.
How do you foresee the workshop impacting the overall mental health landscape in Hela?
Sr Clare: I think Hela needs mental health training because people have mental health issues that result in all forms of violence, abuses, problems and sicknesses in the province. Many said Hela has law-and-order problems. I think law has nothing to do with the health and mental health issues we are facing today. Law was created for the mind and the mind was created for the Law to be effectively implemented. When the mind is sick, the law is not at work. When the mind is healthy, the law is at work. People lived like human beings without the mind, because of their abnormal behaviours.
People with healthy mind think, talk and behave well in the community and will be guided by their Laws. Mental health trainings will impact whole Hela populations if every politician, health and education, police and law and justice services, partners and stakeholders work collaboratively and seriously invest in the importance of mental health of every individual in the province.

Were there any specific case studies or real-life scenarios discussed during the workshop that resonated strongly with the attendees?
Lembo: Yes. Some of the participants were so emotional and cried because they were thinking, talking and behaving abnormally with their families, colleagues, in the workplace, with patients etc. They thought its normal to think, talk, behave and live like that. They even mistreat the patients and did not give them the right care they need. They realized that they were sick mentally and were carry heavy loads and living with it.

What strategies were emphasised to promote self-care among the clinical staff while handling mentally taxing situations?
Lembo: Self-assessment and awareness; taking care of one’s health; eating well; staying active and getting regular exercise; sleeping well; paying attention to unhealthy coping mechanisms; and turning pain into power.

How might the workshop’s teachings enhance the overall patient experience within the clinical environment?
Lembo: The mental health training was an eye opener for all the staff attending the workshop. The training will help the staff to provide holistic care to the patients.

• Terence Francis is an ICT technical officer at the Hela Provincial Health Authority.