Invest in mental care, good for health and economics
The 2017 Atlas of Mental Health reveals that, despite the advances that many countries have experienced in the planning and development of policies, there is still a shortage of skilled workers and a lack of investment in health services for people with health problems. mental.
Human rights conventions advocate a transition from psychiatric centers to community services and require that those suffering from mental disorders be able to participate in the decisions that affect them. However, only 39% of the members of the World Health Organization have policies in accordance with these ideas.
"The latest edition of the Mental Health Atlas * provides further evidence that mental health resources are not expanding fast enough," said Shekhar Saxena, director of the Organization's Department of Mental Health and Addicted Substance Abuse.
In addition, there is a rate of nine mental health workers per 100,000 inhabitants , with a difference of one specialist over the same population in low-income countries and 72 in high-income countries.
"Not investing in mental health urgently will entail health, social and economic costs on a scale that has rarely been seen," said the representative.
Every dollar invested in treatments for mental problems, such as depression or anxiety, involves a return of four dollars in improvements in health and work capacity. In fact, it has been estimated that the lack of recognition of these conditions and access to care generates losses worth a trillion dollars each year .
The transition of services
The 2013-2020 Mental Health Action Plan seeks to improve ambulatory care in general hospitals instead of prioritizing exclusively psychiatric centers, which are usually associated with poor health outcomes and human rights violations.
Although there is a growing number of general care hospitals with psychiatric care, as well as community residential centers, these institutions are not enough to meet the demand.
For this reason, psychiatric centers, generally independent of the general health system, continue to provide most of the mental care. In fact, these institutions have six times more beds than general care hospitals with psychiatric care.
Financial resources
Poor financing of psychiatric care means that a large part of the world's population can not access this care.
According to the report, governments spend an average of 2.5 dollars per capita on mental health and there is a big difference between low-income, who invest less than a dollar, and high-income, where spending amounts to eighty dollars . In fact, about ten cents per capita are invested in the regions of Africa and Southeast Asia.
In addition, most of the expenditure goes to psychiatric centers, so it only serves a small proportion of the people who require attention.
The document also notes that, in more than a third of countries, care and treatment for people with severe mental disorders are not covered by national health insurance or reimbursement systems .
"No one should be excluded from mental health care because of its cost," Shekhar Saxena said while emphasizing the importance of universal health coverage.
Prevention of suicide
Suicide is one of the priorities in mental health, since, every year, about 800,000 people die from this cause. However, only one third of the countries with medium-high or high income and 10% of those with low-middle or low incomes have prevention strategies.
This means that, since 2014, progress in halting the suicide rate, and thus promoting the goal of sustainable development 3.4, have not been sufficient.
