Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: While chairing a follow-up meeting on mental health on Tuesday, Pakistan’s President, Dr Arif Alvi, said that the initiatives on mental health taken by the Prime Minister’s Office, the President’s House, and Ministry of Planning and Development and Special Initiatives might be integrated by optimizing processes and combining them to develop a practical Artificial Intelligence (AI) based helpline to reach out to the maximum population across the country to provide them advice and counseling on mental health issues faced by them.
The meeting was attended by the members of the National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR), the World Health Organization (WHO), the Pakistan Psychological Association (PPA), the Pakistan Psychiatric Society (PPS), officials of the Taskeen Health Initiative, and academia members.
Addressing the meeting, President Alvo said that some excellent work had been done, which showed the focus and importance being accorded to offering mental health services to the target population to reduce stress levels in society.
Mental health initiatives in Pakistan
President Alvi said this was paramount for a healthy society and the country’s development and progress. He said that the financial needs might be determined by the concerned stakeholders considering the hiring of expertise, the technical requirement, and the setting up of required essential physical infrastructure.
President Alvi said that available psychologists and psychiatrists of the Pakistani Diaspora in the UK and other countries should be integrated into the system to provide quality, authentic and professional advice.
He noted that around 2000 psychiatrists of Pakistani origin in the UK could be integrated into the system. He said that mental health service provider systems should be integrated with the existing resources available in Health Institutes, both public and private, and should have a futuristic outlook to allow for expansion, modification, alteration, and improvements in the system to fully exploit opportunities which come to light during its operation in future.
The President said that the artificial intelligence-based system should have the capabilities to cater to the entire target population and the ability to filter out the number of patients who need expert advice according to the available psychiatrists and psychological resources.
