Doha,March 1 :Activities of the first training workshop for physicians about diagnosing psychological conditions such as depression and psychological distress and others, which was launched by the Primary Health Care Corporation at the Millennium hotel Feb. 17, is scheduled to conclude Thursday. During the workshop doctors became familiar with dealing with cases of mental and psychological disorder and ways of providing primary care to them. This came in the context of the Corporation’s launch of the mental health program under the supervision of Dr. Fatima Musa, Head of the mental and psychological health program at the Primary Health Care Corporation. The Corporation is scheduled to start, at later stages, introducing mental health services at health centers in coordination with the other health entities within the state of Qatar, with the aim of eventually reducing the incidence of and recovery from mental illness in the country. For its part, Dr. Fatima commented, saying: “The Corporation in cooperation with the Kings college from London University contracted Dr. Rachel Jenkin, a mental health physician with a long experience in this field through her work with the World Health Organization to present this workshop, which aims to qualify physicians to diagnose psychological conditions and how to provide primary care to them, as well as the transfer of advanced cases to tertiary health authorities, stressing that this program was introduced in several Arab and foreign countries. She added that the Corporation has chosen 16 doctors from the different health centers to receive the training course which lasts for two weeks, and through advanced stages so that the participating doctors are able to train their colleagues in health centers, as the program intends to include mental health services in most health centers by the end of 2015. Dr. Fatima stressed that primary health care benefited from previous experiences regarding the treatment of mental health, which makes the Corporation keen to include mental health services within the centers’ services, with the aim of ensuring the privacy of patients under the prevailing culture which pushes a patient who suffers from a psychological problem to avoid visiting a psychiatric clinic because of the social taboos in many cases. Regarding the goals of the mental health program, Dr. Fatima Moussa confirmed that the program put several goals since its inception end of 2011. These goals include the design of an integrated system of mental health, which includes proper medical practices that address patients’ mental health, and a referral system to other health destinations, in addition to educational campaigns to create community awareness about mental and psychological disease prevention and treatment. Goals include training more than 60% of primary health care physicians. It is noteworthy that the Primary Health Care Corporation launched a number of ambitious programs under the service development and health promotion department, including a healthy lifestyle program, the cancer early detection program, health-promotion program in schools, as well as the mental health program, which all aim to develop multiple health services as part of the launch of a number of new services that will add distinct services to health centers. Qatar Chronicle

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