The World Mental Health Day, an international day for global mental health education, awareness and advocacy against social stigma, is being celebrated on October 10 in more than 150 countries of the world since its first celebration in 1992.
The World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH) has announced the theme for World Mental Health Day 2022, which is ‘Make mental health for all a global priority’.
World Health Organization (WHO) has urged the South-East Asian member states that the actions should be intensified to achieve access for all to quality mental health care.
Around one in eight people had been living with a mental health condition globally, before the COVID-19 pandemic. Unacceptably large gaps had been reported in treatments especially in countries with low-income as well as the middle-income countries.
An estimated one in seven people lived with a mental health condition in the South-East Asian Region and the treatment gap there had ranged from 70 percent to 95 percent.
Specific emphasis has been placed on the need to reorient and integrate mental health services into primary health care in the Paro Declaration. The Paro Declaration ensures that all people in the South-East Asian Region could access quality mental health care without financial hardship.
The declaration also recognized the mental health as a key determinant of social and economic development.
The social and economic development has been an integral part of general health and well-being as a basic human right.
The declaration has also been to help all countries of the region so that longstanding efforts for implementation of equitable mental health policies could be ensured along with laws, programs and services to further strengthen emergency risk management and hence achieving universal health coverage in the end.
