Duties and Responsibilities of the Department of Health (DOH).
Section 30
SEC. 30. Duties and Responsibilities of the Department of Health (DOH). - To achieve the policy and objectives of this Act, the DOH shall: (a) Formulate, develop, and implement a national mental health program. In coordination with relevant government- agencies, create a framework for Mental Health Awareness Program to promote effective strategies regarding mental health care, its components, and services, as well as to improve awareness on stigmatized medical conditions; (b) Ensure that a safe, therapeutic, and hygienic environment, with sufficient privacy exists in all mental health facilities and, for this purpose, shall he responsible for the regulation, licensing, monitoring, and assessment of all mental health facilities: (c) Integrate menial health into the routine health information system and identify, collate, routinely report and use care mental health data disaggregated by sex and age. and health outcomes, including data on completed and attempted suicides, in order to improve mental health service delivery, promotion and prevention strategies; (d) Improve research capacity and academic collaboration on national priorities for research in mental health, particularly operational research with direct relevance to service development, implementation, and the exercise of human rights by persons with mental health conditions, including the establishment of centers of excellence: (e) Ensure that all public and private mental health institutions uphold the right of patients to be protected against torture or cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment; (f) Coordinate with the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation to ensure that insurance packages equivalent to those covering physical disorders of comparable impact to the patient, as measured by Disability-Adjusted Life Year or other methodologies, are available to patients affected by mental health conditions; (g) Prohibit forced or inadequately remunerated labor within mental, health facilities, unless such labor is justified as part of an accepted therapeutic treatment program; (h) Provide support services for families and co-workers of service users, mental health professionals, workers, and other service providers; (i) Develop alternatives to institutionalization, particularly community, recovery-based approaches to treatment aimed at receiving patients discharged from hospitals, meeting the needs expressed by persons with mental health conditions, and respecting their autonomy, decisions, dignity, and privacy; (j) Ensure that all health facilities shall establish their respective internal review boards. In consultation with stakeholders, the DOH shall promulgate the rules and regulations necessary for the efficient disposition of all proceedings, matters, and cases referred to. or reviewed by, the internal review board; (k) Establish a balanced system of community-based and hospital-based mental health services at all levels of the public health care system from the barangay, municipal, city, provincial, regional to the national level; and (l) Ensure that all health workers shall undergo human rights trainings in coordination with appropriate agencies or organizations.