KARACHI, Oct 9: Health practitioners have called for education of the citizens on the significance of mental health and creation of demands for services delivery to the silent sufferers of mental disorders, including anxiety, depression, hysteria and psychosis.

They were speaking at a press conference at the Karachi Press Club on Thursday on the eve of the World Mental Health Day. The theme of the day for this year is ‘Making mental health a global priority: scaling up through citizens advocacy and action.’

Speaking at the press conference, the president of the Pakistan Association for Mental Health, Prof S. Haroon Ahmad, said that cases of mental disorders had been increasing every year, which could be attributed to the lack of commitment both on the part of the policy-makers and the implementers.

“We in a population of 160 million people are having 30-35 per cent of people who in one form or another are suffering from mental illnesses, which is a highly disturbing situation,” he said, adding that such a large number of sick people largely failed to contribute positively towards the overall economy of the country and their respective families as well.

He said mental health and illness was part of every country, culture, age group and socio-economic status, but it was unfortunate that very little had been done in Pakistan for the expansion of the mental health service both in the public and private sectors.

“Now it is high time we moved for an informed, targeted and constant advocacy with clear and coordinated messages and adequate funding on mental illness and its entailing problems to ensure improved mental health services,” Dr Ahmed said.

He also expressed concern over the social stigma attached to patients with mental health problems or those seeking psychiatric help, and urged the government to ensure the implementation of the Mental Health Ordinance, 2001, which among other provisions, also provides ground for punishment for those who inflicted injury, chained or abused such patients.

He said the MHO 2001 provision in chapter VIII 52, 5, read as “Any person who carries out any form of inhumane treatment on mentally disordered person which includes: trepanning, branding, scaling, beating, exorcising, chaining to a tree of any person or subjecting a child to the cultural practice of rendering him mentally retarded, by inducing microcephaly or subjecting any such person to physical, emotional or sexual abuse, shall be guilty of an offence, punishable with rigorous imprisonment which may extend to five years or with a fine extending up to Rs50,000 or with both.”

Dr Rubina Kidwai shared with the audience some findings of a survey of middle- to low-income communities in the five defunct districts of Karachi during the last one year.

Preliminary results showed that in a sample of 1,500 respondents from randomly selected households, 19 per cent were positive for psychiatric morbidity, a presentation of significant stress or distress and 16 per cent were found to be clinically depressed, while four per cent individuals were in immediate need of treatment for depression at the time of interviews and one per cent was found to be actively suicidal, Dr Rubina said.

Dr Naeem Siddiqui said people suffering from depression, which could be treated, had also been reasons behind the furtherance of complexities of other diseases in the patients. He called for an increase in the number of psychiatrists, trained medical staff, and sensitisation and awareness-raising among general physicians and primary health-care physicians in the recognition and management of common psychiatric illnesses.