Nowadays, the COVID-19 pandemic has debilitating effects in many areas of human life. The psychological effect of a pandemic could be the outcome of direct consequences from the biological nature of the virus or indirect consequences such as socioeconomic factors affected by COVID-19. Despite the increased mental health problem that has been detected during the pandemic, many analyses emerged that we would face pandemic aftermath named the “tsunami” of psychiatric illness. Mental health resources insufficiency in developing countries has been known before the pandemic. From this study, we want to describe a few examples of innovative public psychiatry approaches needed to anticipate burden increase in the mental health system as a “tsunami” of psychiatric illness predicted to become a reality. This study used the narrative review method to include various literature sources related to anticipating post-pandemic psychiatric burden from public psychiatry perspective and “agile governance” theory. We found that telemedicine still has limitations, especially in developing countries where technological infrastructure cannot be widely accessible in rural areas. We also found that reformulating the care system, as we found in the Collaborative Care Model, may be more feasible to be applied and adapted in Indonesia. We conclude that the Collaborative Care Model developed by American Psychiatric Association could be considered by policymakers to be adapted in Indonesia’s psychiatric service in anticipating pandemic aftermath named “tsunami” of psychiatric illness.

Keywords: Public Psychiatry, Post Pandemic, Psychiatric Illness, COVID-19 Pandemic