Government Psychological Services For Those Affected By COVID-19

Illustrations (Irfan Meidianto / VOI)

JAKARTA - A survivor of a corona virus or COVID-19 case said that psychological pressure caused his health to decline and decreased until finally he needed psychological services from experts in order to recover from his illness.

Sita Tyasutami, a survivor of the 01 COVID-19 case in Indonesia, said that she received mental pressure after she was reported to have contracted the virus, especially after this information was conveyed by the government as the first case of COVID-19.

"At that time our family felt pressure because there was shock and fear and pressure from the media and the people," said Sita in a press conference for the launch of psychological services for mental health which was broadcast on the YouTube account of the Presidential Staff Office, Wednesday, April 29.

All the hoax information and twisted facts about him put pressure on him. Thus, his health declined and his body's immunity was weakened.

"When all the photos and my identity were revealed, I finally physically dropped again and my immune system weakened. All the symptoms that disappeared finally came back," he said.

The hoax news and negative public sentiment continued when he was discharged from the hospital. Sita had experienced a mental breakdown due to this pressure.

Finally, a friend advised him to communicate with a psychologist and Sita told him about his experience until he finally found calm.

"For a full day I shared my experiences and finally I was able to calm down. Initially I had a high tension and could not breathe even though I was discharged from the hospital," he said.

Reflecting on her experience, Sita then agreed that in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic like now, patients and the general public need psychological services. This is because all the negative stigma he received when he became a positive patient with COVID-19 could have occurred because of the panic in the community.

"People who are not positive, who are not patients also need psychological services as well as patients," he said.

Sita is just one of thousands of COVID-19 patients who may be stigmatized. The large number of stressed COVID-19 patients led the government to launch the Sejiwa psychological service.

President Moeldoko's Chief of Staff said that the Sejiwa service was a government initiative that was proposed during a limited meeting with President Joko Widodo and had been approved.

He explained that this service was made by the government because the Chairperson of the Task Force for the Acceleration of Handling COVID-19 Doni Monardo once said that currently, psychological problems are quite high in the community.

"The report of the Chairperson of the Task Force for the Acceleration of Handling COVID-19 said that 20 percent of the COVID-19 problem is a health problem and 80 percent is a psychological problem," said Moeldoko.

The government considers this to be dangerous because if people cannot take care of their psychology, there will be a decrease in endurance and make it easier for COVID-19 to infect the body and make health weak.

"This service is provided as a tangible form that the state is here to protect its citizens. One of them is to maintain mental health through counseling and education services to affected communities. So today we will launch a mental health psychology service which we named Sejiwa," he said.

Sejiwa Services, according to Moeldoko, will provide counseling and education to people affected by COVID-19. This service can be accessed by the public via hotline 119 ext. 9.

With regard to public data accessing this service, Minister of Communication and Information (Menkominfo) Johnny G Plate said that his party would certainly protect personal data as regulated by law.

According to Johnny, the existing data will certainly be used for the purpose of preventing this virus from growing and will be deleted when this pandemic ends. "Current data must be ascertained for certain purposes and it must end at the end of the COVID-19 emergency," said Johnny.

"Because it is related to data, we need to pay attention and keep the data from being misused," he concluded.