A new community-based project to bring mental health care to people's doorsteps is being drawn up, Dr M A Muhit, state minister for health and family welfare, said on Tuesday. It will first be piloted in 20 upazilas and then expanded nationwide in phases after its experience and challenges are reviewed.
He was speaking as chief guest at a seminar at the Bangla Academy in Dhaka for World Mental Health Day, organised by Aanchal Foundation and three other non-government groups. Care cannot stop at treatment, he said; prevention, early detection, treatment, psychosocial support and rehabilitation must be combined, with coordination between district and upazila services and referral to specialised centres when needed.
According to the National Mental Health Survey 2019, 16.8 percent of adults over 18 and 13.6 percent of children aged 7 to 17 in Bangladesh had a mental health condition, and 92.3 percent of those adults and 94.5 percent of those children received no treatment.
Presenting the keynote, Md Zianur Kabir, director of the Human Rights Development Centre and a mental health specialist, said stigma, fear, shame and discrimination keep many from seeking help. He called for services at upazila and primary care level, trained staff, technology-based counselling, psychologists in district and medical college hospitals and a separate mental health directorate.
Professor Kamal Uddin Ahmed Chowdhury of Dhaka University's clinical psychology department proposed a larger mental health budget and at least two community health workers in every upazila. Aanchal Foundation president Tansen Rose said specialists are too few, so front-line community members should be trained as psychosocial counsellors.
Mental health care is almost absent in rural Bangladesh; trained workers at upazila level could give farmers, labourers and their families help close to home for the first time.
Photo: Bangla Academy, Dhaka (file), Ashfaq Mahmud / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Source: Prothom Alo
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