There are, of course, mental health issues related to COVID in Cambodia as well.
People, they lost jobs, they lost income, they lost their loved ones.
A lot of patients of mine, have relapsed.
During this first eight months in 2021,
we have more than 2000 cases of counseling,
which is three times the numbers that we have last year .
But I think it's maybe only a tip of the iceberg.
Cambodia had been through
suffering from war, from the genocide,
Khmer Rouge and then war again.
A lot of things that trigger the memory of the past.
In relations to COVID, for example, during the lockdown, the city were quiet.
People cannot travel from one place to another.
And people think that wow this is like Phnom Penh under the Khmer Rouge.
I think it's not only clients,
some general public, older people also make this kind of connection.
Providing online
counseling is not new for TPO. Prior to COVID,
we have a hotline counseling for a stop suicide program,
which is funded by the Australian government.
When the COVID start, we have experience in working with people through online
or virtually. So we start to implement that straight away.
I think there are a lot of people
outside of Phnom Penh who need mental health support, but there is no support available.
Mental health has not been a priority.
But I think everyone needs mental health care.
In 1992, I was a junior doctor
working in the rural area,
and I see people with mental health problems, schizophrenic patients.
I start to wonder what kind of problem is this?
There was no psychiatrist,no professor who survived who can teach us.
In 2008, I have an opportunity
to get the Australian Award scholarship.
This helped me to look at mental health
in terms of cultures. The mental health issue
a lot of time related to the cultural belief.
You know, when people believe on something their mental health presentation,
or mental health reactions is, according to their belief, their culture.
We need to continue to offer hotline because
when people who desperately needed someone to talk to
and when they have someone to talk to, it can save their life.
Because when someone who want to commit suicide,
if no one cannot listen to them or no one that they cannot talk to,
I think they may feel that this is the end of the world so they may
commit suicide and we saved their lives through listening to them.
That's why it's keep us motivating to do this work. Without TPO
there is no other service that these people can turn to.
If we don't do, nobody will do it. It
is not easy, you
know, from 8AM to 12:00 p.m., they feel tired.
Sometimes they want to give up.
We have a peer support and we have regular meetings
so that people can express their feeling as well.
This kind of peer support helped them overcome
the vicarious traumatization that they may receive from their client.
At the moment, there is not many counselor in Cambodia. After COVID.
I think these type of people and counselors social worker
need to be trained to offer the mental health service to the people.