Don’t leave out mental health in COVID-19 battle

Start with a federal hotline, Kathleen Finlay writes.

“The uncertainty can be really tough, not just for your routine, but for your mental health, too. If you need help, reach out … to a hotline.” — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, March 25

Trudeau has urged Canadians who are experiencing emotional difficulties coping with the stress of the COVID-19 outbreak to use a hotline to seek help. He needs to talk to his government. Because, Mr. Prime Minister, unlike its U.S. counterpart, out federal government doesn’t operate an emotional distress hotline. In fact, its approach to the mental-health aspect of this global crisis falls short.

The World Health Organization has called COVID-19 a significant trigger for anxiety. No wonder. No one alive today has ever experienced anything like a catastrophe where two of our most crucial determinants of survival — our health and our financial security — are suddenly under siege.

Our social and economic moorings are being washed away. So are our jobs. People are disappearing from public spaces, replaced by images of health-care workers in full haz-mat suits. Family members are being denied visits to loved ones in care homes and hospitals. Health-care professionals and first responders are being traumatized by the daunting scale of the challenges that confront them. These are incredible stressors for even the healthiest among us. But many of us are already dealing with strains and blows to our mental health that make coping much more difficult.

I’ve heard from a lot of people who have told me how hard it is to get through the day.

I’m struck by the panic in their voices and the despair in their emails. In the U.S., anxiety is taking an ominous turn. As Nadine Kaslow, PhD, professor and vice-chair at Emory University’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences, told me in an interview, “people are experiencing and reporting tremendous anticipatory anxiety and panic.” She added there are “anecdotal reports of increased 911 and hotline calls from people who have suicidal thoughts or have attempted suicide.” These, she noted, can be traced to the coronavirus epidemic. Calls to U.S. crisis hotlines have spiked by 300 per cent.

With each passing day, it’s becoming more clear that the emotional harm caused by this disease is as contagious as the virus itself.

It’s surprising, then, that the Public Health Agency of Canada, the federal government body leading the nation’s COVID-19 response, has nothing on its website that recognizes the huge mental-health effect of the virulent storm that’s sweeping the country.

In contrast, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provides a wealth of information dedicated to addressing the stress and anxiety produced by COVID-19. It also promotes a toll-free number for the national distress hotline for those experiencing mental-health trauma. Canada has no comparable hotline run by the federal government. On top of this, the privately run national suicide-prevention hotline number isn’t on the agency’s website.

If someone in emotional distress can quickly reach a trained counsellor with a compassionate voice on the other end of the telephone, the chance of a healing outcome is significantly improved. Speed and simplicity of access are critical. A multiplicity of local crisis numbers in a time of national emergency affords neither speed nor simplicity.

That’s why I am urgently pleading with the federal government to create a nationwide, 24-hour emotional crisis hotline staffed by mental-health professionals and trained counsellors. The hotline must be widely publicized on TV, radio and social media, and across online platforms. It should be integrated into a well-co-ordinated federal strategy to address the mental-health consequences of COVID -19.

We know ventilators provide needed life support for coronavirus patients in the ICU.

For people experiencing mental-health trauma, a crisis hotline can be their life support.

Canada has adopted strategies to attack both the spread of the virus and its economic fallout. A nationwide crisis hotline is an essential part of the battle.

Kathleen Finlay is a mental-health advocate, CEO of The Center for Patient Protection and founder of The 988 Campaign for Canada.