Mental healthcare is grossly neglected
A recent report in this daily reveals the activities of a nexus of brokers harassing families of patients with mental illness seeking treatment at Pabna Mental Hospital. Getting an appointment with a doctor has become a difficult task with the already understaffed hospital operating with fewer resources due to the Covid-19 outbreak. This has given a field day for brokers to demand money from the families of patients to "manage" an appointment with a doctor inside the hospital or lure them to privately-run clinics, the credentials of which are unknown. The result is increasing suffering for the patients and their families.
This is not surprising. Unfortunately, mental health facilities are grossly inadequate in our country despite the growing number of people with mental health issues. And this has been the case long before the pandemic. The Pabna Mental Hospital is the main public hospital in the country where the majority of patients from all over the country seek treatment. It has only 500 beds and has always been understaffed. Out of the 25 allotted posts for doctors, 13 remain vacant. The hospital management has repeatedly sent letters to the higher authorities requesting that the posts be filled, but so far nothing has happened.
The Daily Star report, published on the World Mental Health Day, gives a grim picture of how far behind we are in providing proper care to the mental health patients. The theme of this year's Day is increased investment in mental health programmes—which is obviously the need of the hour for Bangladesh.
While the immediate step to take would be to identify the brokers and take action against them, the long-term problem of understaffing and lack of facilities has to be addressed on an urgent basis. Apart from filling the vacant posts, the capacity of the hospital needs to be increased by hiring more qualified doctors and nurses and improving the existing facilities. The mental health wards of other public hospitals need to be evaluated with the gaps in staffing and facilities identified and filled. There needs to be more investment in improving the quality of mental healthcare in all these hospitals.
According to the National Mental Health Survey in Bangladesh from 2018-19, around 17 percent of Bangladeshi adults are undergoing mental health problems like depression, anxiety, stress and obsessive-compulsive disorders. Isolation and loss of income during this pandemic has resulted in more people experiencing various mental health issues. Mental healthcare must be made affordable to all people and be part of primary health care. The pandemic has exposed the neglect with which this crucial area of healthcare has been treated, and should prompt the government to make the investments needed to improve existing facilities and increase the number of medical graduates who will become therapists and psychiatrists and be recruited to mental health hospitals and wards.
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