The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation should present an update on the rollout of its package for mental health illnesses, Senator Win Gatchalian said Thursday.
Gatchalian cited that PhilHealth earlier planned to roll out its mental health outpatient package in July.
The senator flagged the unreleased package despite "the country is facing a pandemic of mental health issues."
To date, Gatchalian said that PhilHealth only offers a P7,800 case rate for confined patients having specific conditions such as dementia, bipolar disorders, schizophrenia, and anxiety disorders.
He lamented that the high cost of mental health services makes it inaccessible to many Filipinos to acquire fair mental care.
Gatchalian, who chairs the Senate Committee on Basic Education, noted that a cursory search on the internet would point to packages costing up to P43,800.
"Sisingilin ko ang PhilHealth sa mental health package dahil nangako sila. Noong una natuwa kami dahil may acknowledgement sila na may problema tayo sa mental health at mababa ang ating package, pero wala namang aksyon na nangyari," he said.
"Sisingilin talaga namin sila dahil nga kung titignan natin yung datos, mahigit 4,000 ang nagpakamatay sa isang taon at 400 ang nagpakamatay mula sa mga paaralan natin kaya talagang may problema tayo pagdating sa mental health," he added.
Gatchalian described the increasing deaths of Filipinos due to suicide as logged National Center for Mental Health as "alarming."
In 2019, the NCMH recorded 3,129 calls, of which 325 or 10 percent were suicide-related.
In the same year, the Philippine Statistics Authority recorded 2,810 deaths due to suicide.
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the calls to the NCMH related to mental health problems had almost quadrupled to 11,017. While suicide-related calls rose to 15 percent or 1,382. The deaths by suicide almost doubled to 4,892 in the same period.
In 2022, the number of calls to the NCMH and deaths by suicide remain high.
Out of the 18,011 total calls to the NCMH that year, 6,853 were suicide-related. That same year, the PSA recorded 3,103 deaths by suicide.
Gatchalian further emphasized how mental health issues affect learners with 404 learners dying by suicide during the School Year 2021-2022.
The Senate recently approved on third and final reading of the Basic Education Mental Health and Well-Being Promotion Act.
The proposed measure, which was authored and sponsored by Gatchalian, seeks to institutionalize the School-Based Mental Health Program to promote and ensure the mental health and well-being of learners in public and private basic education institutions.
