PEMA — Secretariat for Mental Health and Wellness

The PEMA — His Majesty's Secretariat for the Promotion of Mental Health and Wellness — is an autonomous body in Bhutan tasked with coordinating mental-health policy and service delivery across the public sector. It was inaugurated in June 2022 under the patronage of His Majesty Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck and Her Majesty The Gyaltsuen Jetsun Pema Wangchuck, who chairs its work.^[1]

The Secretariat was conceived as a response to the strain that the COVID-19 pandemic placed on Bhutan's pre-existing mental-health framework, particularly for young people, and to the rising suicide rate documented by the Ministry of Health through the second half of the 2010s. According to a 2023 article in The Druk Journal by The PEMA Secretariat, Her Majesty's personal involvement in the response to the pandemic exposed the gaps in mental-health services and motivated the establishment of a dedicated coordinating body.^[2]

The PEMA's remit covers preventive promotion, treatment and rehabilitation, including substance-use disorders. It is the parent body of the PEMA Centre — Bhutan's national mental-health hospital in Thimphu, inaugurated in October 2026 — and of the 200-bed PEMA Rehab national rehabilitation centre, and operates a network of counselling and outreach services, working with the Department of Psychiatry at JDWNRH as the primary clinical partner.^[3]

Origins

The Secretariat traces its institutional roots to a series of consultations held during 2020 and 2021 between Her Majesty The Gyaltsuen, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education and Skills Development, the Royal Bhutan Police and the National Commission for Women and Children. These consultations identified four main weaknesses in the existing system: the concentration of specialist services in Thimphu, the absence of a dedicated psychiatric hospital, an under-resourced community-counselling layer, and limited integration of mental-health screening into routine primary care.^[2]

Programmes

The PEMA's published programme structure covers four main areas. Promotion and prevention activities include school-based mental-health curricula, parent and teacher training, and public-information campaigns. Response services include a helpline accessed through the Royal Bhutan Police 1010 number, with calls forwarded to PEMA-trained counsellors, and outreach for individuals at acute risk. Treatment is delivered through partnerships with the psychiatry department at JDWNRH and the regional referral hospitals at Mongar and Gelephu, with a centralised drug and alcohol treatment programme managed by The PEMA. Rehabilitation services cover substance-use recovery and post-acute psychiatric step-down care.^[4]

The Secretariat has worked with the Asia News Network and the WHO South-East Asia Regional Office to scale up its school-based programmes and to integrate mental-health indicators into routine primary-care reporting.^[5]

The PEMA Centre

The flagship infrastructure project under The PEMA's purview is the PEMA Centre in Thimphu, the country's first dedicated psychiatric hospital, designed to centralise specialised inpatient and rehabilitation care that had historically been split between general-hospital wards and ad hoc rehabilitation arrangements. Its Salhang Tendrel (foundation) ceremony was held on 3 November 2021 within the JDWNRH complex.^[6]

Her Majesty The Gyaltsuen inaugurated the completed centre in October 2026, on the occasion of World Mental Health Day and the closing of the Fourth PEMA Symposium. As inaugurated, the national mental-health centre combines outpatient, inpatient and day-care services with child protection services, and includes a children and adolescents clinic, an addiction recovery programme, and specialised inpatient units including a closed ward for patients in crisis. Three programmes were launched alongside the inauguration: Sem Kham First Aid, a free self-help awareness zone; Mental Health in Emergencies, providing psychiatric services during disasters and crises; and the National Care Pathways for Child Protection Services.^[8] The associated 200-bed PEMA Rehab national rehabilitation centre had been inaugurated earlier, by mid-2026.^[9]

At the symposium on 10 October 2026, Her Majesty also urged lawmakers to review the penalties for rape and other sexual offences, particularly those committed against children, saying the punishment must reflect the seriousness of the crime and deliver justice for survivors.^[10]

Inter-Agency Cooperation

The PEMA's institutional design relies on memoranda of understanding with line ministries rather than on an absorption of their existing functions. Its principal partners are the Ministry of Health, which retains responsibility for clinical services; the Ministry of Education and Skills Development, which manages school-based programmes; the Royal Bhutan Police, which operates the 1010 emergency line; and the National Commission for Women and Children, which handles cases involving children and survivors of domestic and gender-based violence. A peer-reviewed 2025 paper in PMC's analysis of mental-health-service delivery in Bhutan situates The PEMA's coordinating role within the broader stepped-care model that the country has been working toward since the introduction of the National Suicide Prevention Programme in 2014.^[7]

Contact

Website: thepema.gov.bt
Helpline: 1010 (Royal Bhutan Police line, with mental-health desk operated by PEMA-trained counsellors)
Address: The PEMA Secretariat, Thimphu, Bhutan

References

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