Recently, nurses in the field of mental health and psychiatric nursing gathered together for two days during the Annual Convention of the country's nursing specialty organization in psychiatric nursing, The Psychiatric Mental Health Nurses Association of the Philippines, Inc (PMHNAPI). The event was held in Crown Royal Hotel, Balanga, Bataan last December 11 and 12, 2015 with the theme, "Mainstreaming Mental Health in the Community: Nurses as Frontliners of Health Care". It was attended by academicians, practitioners and researchers all over the Philippines and even delegates from the nearby country, Indonesia. The convention was led by the most able president, Dr. Ronnell Delarosa and its founding chair, Prof. Nenita Davadilla.
The convention embarked its core foundation to the leadership role of nurses in the field of health care and mental health. This was greatly discussed and emphasized by Board of Nursing member, Dr. Gloria B. Arcos. Her points were further elaborated by two key note speakers, Ms. Frances Precilla Cuevas, National Mental Health Program Manager of Department of Health and Ms. Betty Meritt, former Board of Nursing. Ms. Cuevas presented the National Mental Health Program and provided insights on how nurses can work for the building of the national mental health system. Ms. Meritt, on the other hand, presented the road of nursing empowerment and clearly emphasized the nurses capacity to be a leader on the health care and mental health.
This yearly event presented the association main program thrusts: education, training, research and advocacy (ETRA). For each program thrust, there are invited renowned speakers in their respective fields. For education, Prof. Merle Mejico of the University of the Philippines discussed about how community mental health nursing as a course is integrated in the nursing curriculum. For training, Prof. Rita Tamse discussed the relevance of patient safety, as one of the core nursing responsibility. Additionally, Ms. Argie Rivera discussed ways on how to do evluation and assessment in clinical nursing setting. Another thrust, research, is discussed by Dr. Remy Fernandez and Dr. Rudolf Martinez. Dr. Fernandez presented one research study on the insight of children of persons with schizophrenia and their hardship being experienced. The latter, Dr. Martinez pointed out that Phenomenology as a research methodology has great affinity towards mental health researches and should be promoted. As to advocacy, Mr. John Ryan Buenaventura presented the gap in mental health and discussed ways how nurses as a profession work on addressing this gap through supporting mental health gap action program and mental health action plan 2013-202 of the World Health Organization.
The challenges posted by the speakers were clear: that psychiatric mental health nurses must uphold its leadership role in the primary health care to have a relevant and great impact to the mental health of the public. Additionally, nurses should upscale the levels and standards in the areas of education, training and research to be consistent to its vision: Best for the Filipino People and the choice of the World.
