The flexibility, naturally, gave employees more free time. They could look after their children (who were doing online school), care for COVID-19infected family members, and enjoy the time they saved by not having to commute to and from the office. The remote work set-up proved to be so successful that, according to a study done by Global Workplace Analytics, 77 percent of the workforce want to continue working from home even after the pandemic. Ironically, it took a pandemic to demonstrate that when people have free time to enjoy life, it vastly improves their mental health. Quick read: • • • Before the pandemic, mental health services across the globe were among the least of governments’ priorities. The COVID-19 pandemic aggravated this situation. Because of their circumstances, only three out of 10 people with mental health disorders will seek treatment. Government agencies and private companies implemented remote work set-ups amidst the pandemic. Sources: World Health Organization. (2022, March 2). COVID-19 Pandemic Triggers 25% Increase in Prevalence of Anxiety and Depression Worldwide. World Health Organization. https://www. who.int/news/item/02-03-2022-covid-19-pandemic-triggers-25-increase-in-prevalence-of-anxietyand-depression-worldwide World Health Organization. (2020, August 27). World Mental Health Day: An Opportunity to Kick-start a Massive Scale-up in Investment in Mental Health. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/news/item/27-08-2020-world-mental-health-day-an-opportunity-to-kickstart-a-massive-scale-up-in-investment-in-mental-health#:~:text=Mental%20health%20is%20 one%20of,every%2040%20seconds%20by%20suicide Dattani, S., Ritchie, H., & Roser, M. (2018, April; updated in 2021, August). Mental Health. Our World In Data. https://ourworldindata.org/mental-health Davies, K. (2021, July 16). A Global Approach to Reduce Mental Health Stigma and Discrimination. King’s College London. https://www.kcl.ac.uk/a-global-approach-to-reduce-mentalhealth-stigma-and-discrimination 15 The Mental Health of Pinoys At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Health (DOH) gave out some troubling numbers describing the state of mental health in the Philippines. Frances Prescilla Cuevas, chief health program officer of the DOH’s Disease Prevention and Control Bureau, listed them down: • At least 3.6 million Filipinos were battling mental health issues. • About 1.14 million Filipinos were suffering from depression. • Of these, 847,000 were dealing with disorders caused by alcohol use. • A further 520,000 were diagnosed with bipolar disorder. In itself, this is already troubling news. But because of a glaring lack of support, the situation gets worse, as explained by June Pagaduan Lopez, M.D., one of the founders of MAG and a retired professor of psychiatry at the University of the Philippines. According to Lopez, the number of practicing mental health professionals in the Philippines is extremely inadequate. In May 2022, as reported by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the Philippines had a population of over 109 million. Servicing these millions at the height of the pandemic were 700 psychiatrists—7 psychiatrists for roughly 1.09 million people. Assisting the psychiatrists were over 1,000 nurses working in psychiatric care—one psychiatric nurse for about one million Filipinos. 16