The COMMUNITY OUTREACH PROGRAM is a yearly activity to help clients under the care of Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, Hospital Sultan Haji Ahmad Shah (HOSHAS) specifically under the Mentari and community team. Through this program, visits to the client’s home are conducted for the purpose to assist the basic needs and welfare of the client as well as to provide psychosocial support and rehabilitation. The client will be provided assistance and training in terms of various daily living activities such as financial management, basic home management and domestic skills. In addition, we encourage everyone, not just within the psychiatry department, to join us in the form of ‘gotong-royong’ (communal work). This is to increase the awareness regarding welfare of psychiatry clients.

Despite being amidst of Covid-19, we managed to carry on with our yearly COMMUNITY OUTREACH PROGRAM for this year on 7th of April 2021. This year’s program was to repair and restore the home belonged to two siblings, both are under psychiatric care situated in Kampung Buntut Pulau, Temerloh. Their home was badly damaged due to floods early this year. The communal work also involved 30 volunteers including the Deputy Director of HOSHAS, members from Badan Kabajikan Psikiatri (BKP) HOSHAS, and independent contractor company; Cha’s Construction & Renovation that was willing to provide free labor to make the whole program success. It is hoped that this program would ease the client’s burden to live comfortably as well as to raise the awareness and reduce the stigma towards psychiatry clients.