Buletin Kesihatan Mental Persatuan Kesihatan Mental Malaysia PATRON: TOH PUAN DATO' SERI HJH. DR. AISHAH ONG
December 2009 (4/09)	KDN PP/5342/10/2010 (0257656)

Message From the President
AS THE YEAR DRAWS TO A CLOSE

The year 2009 has been the most eventful - the good and the bad. There were setbacks, but there were also triumphs. The Malaysian Mental Health Association has come a long way since its inception in 1967. It has overcome many challenges along the way, and it shall continue to strive on towards its mission to be a dynamic advocate on mental health and for positive attitudes towards mental illness, amongst others.

As a step towards being a professionally run organisation, we are happy to inform you that MMHA has received its ISO 9001:2000 recertification for Quality Management of its Rehabilitation Service for the 2nd consecutive year from Lloyd's in November. We thank our past president, Mr. See Cheng Siang, for initiating this quality system in 2007. We have continued to adjust, revise and streamline the processes to make them clearer, more systematic and measurable. We are more than aware that the ISO certification is not the finale of quality service but the commitment and quality of its human resource.

As part of our staff development and service improvement, MMHA with the help of sponsors, sent two participants to the World Psychiatric Rehabilitation Congress in Bangalore, India to learn from others, practical ways of providing a more effective mental rehabilitation service.

Although psychosocial rehabilitation is a core business of MMHA, we also run a number of public and family education programmes to create better awareness on mental health, as well as to help carers cope with their mentally ill family member As the advocate for the mentally ill, MMHA, under the umbrella of MINDA Malaysia (a national body consisting of family support groups from various states), has forwarded a memorandum to the Life Insurance Association of Malaysia (LIAM) for the inclusion of mental illness as any other medical illness in medical insurance coverage. This is in line with the US Mental Health Insurance Parity Law that was passed in September 2008 which makes it mandatory for insurance companies offer coming private health insurance to provide coverage for mental illness that is equivalent to coverage for other medical illnesses. Mental illness is still a taboo and a stigma in our Malaysian society. A recent survey of carers who attended our Family Education Programme series indicated that 53.8% of them had initial difficulties of letting their close relatives know of the mental illness in a family member while 61.5% felt uncomfortable to let others know. MMHA wants you to know that there is no shame in having mental illness. It is common, if we do not pretend. It affects all age groups, all strata of society irrespective of social status and educational background.

Come join us for the Mental Health Big Walk next year to destigmatise mental illness in conjunction with World Mental Health Day on 10.10.10, a meaningful triple 10 and we shall speak out that there is no shame in having mental illness.

DATIN DR. ANG KIM TENG
President,
Malaysian Mental Health Association