The Covid19 has caused an “emotional tsunami”, which places another stress on an already tense society.
This is the view of Suntosh Pillay, a clinical psychologist working in the public sector in KwaZulu-Natal.“I think there’s going to be intense feelings of depression after this, especially as we’re dealing with the after-effects of the economic meltdown,” he said.
“We don’t want to pathologise people’s feelings, because [they] are normal and acceptable, but it takes a toll on mental health even if it doesn’t lead to serious mental illness. It definitely leaves people in a perpetual state of stress,” he says. Adding to this, Pillay says that there is a direct relationship between socioeconomic wellbeing and mental health. In his experience, Pillay says, most patients face stress and anxiety as a result of issues like food, money or employment.
“One of the things that has come out to us [in the research] which was surprising, is that a lot of frontline workers really felt traumatised by [the pandemic], and they described symptoms which sounded like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder ,” says Chiliza.The psychiatrists society, along with Sadag, the South African Medical Association and other health professionals have set up a network of mental health professionals to help the country’s frontline healthcare workers.
Chiliza says that patients who were stable were given two months’ worth of psychiatric medicines, but concerns and stress from the pandemic were resulting in some patients not taking their medications. Deputy director-general of welfare Services, Connie Nxumalo, said at the same briefing that the teams comprised social workers who were trained in trauma counselling.
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