Time to invest adequately in mental health

Yesterday we marked the World Mental Health Day, with the theme this year being ‘Move for mental health: Let’s invest’. In the context of Covid-19, there is broad agreement that the risk the pandemic poses to our mental health is great, and its effects are likely to last for a very long time.

Unfortunately, the mental health effects of this pandemic only serve to compound an already terrible situation. Historically, most governments have neglected mental health in their planning, and across the globe mental health remains largely peripheral to national health priorities.

With close to a billion people having a mental illness, and almost a million of them dying by suicide every year, mental ill health is among the most serious global health threats of our time.

Further, people with mental illnesses suffer an overall poor quality of life, and when they inevitably get other chronic physical illnesses, they are at greater risk of dying prematurely than those without mental illnesses.

All over the world, being mentally ill relegates an individual to second-class-citizen status, with limited access to healthcare and other social amenities.

Mental illnesses

The reason people with mental illnesses have been neglected in this manner is that public authorities have not invested sufficiently in mental health infrastructure that would ensure good mental health is promoted, mental illnesses are prevented where possible, or diagnosed early to facilitate early intervention and reduction of the suffering or deaths due to these illnesses.

There is a shortage of facilities to take care of those with conditions that limit their ability to participate meaningfully in the economy, and a large number of people with chronic severe mental illnesses are either homeless or badly neglected and mistreated at home.

The time has come to change all this. Arguments about the cost of treating mental illness only capture one side of the story, and even then, they do so erroneously.

Firstly, it has been demonstrated that treating common mental disorders like depression, anxiety and substance-related disorders brings returns five to seven times the investment, in terms of economic productivity, reduction in criminal justice costs, and overall health of the population.

Secondly, spending money to improve mental health improves other sectors of the economy as well, including education and the legal justice system.

Great interest

In Kenya, the government has recently shown great interest in mental health and established a task force late last year to advise on priority interventions to improve Kenyans’ mental health.

The report of the task force was finalised and handed over to the government for implementation a few months ago, and the mental health fraternity in Kenya is quite confident it offers an opportunity for us to vastly improve the mental health landscape in Kenya.

Among the recommendations, the recurring theme is the need to reverse the effects of chronic neglect by investing in more human resources for mental health, mental health facilities, securing supplies for mental health care and supporting research in mental health in order to ensure policy-making is based on solid evidence.

We fully expect the national and county governments to come through on these recommendations, and we look forward to commitments that will secure our mental health and place us on a trajectory of better health and well-being as a nation.

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