Health officials on Thursday launched the national mental health strategy to improve treatment for people with mental illness and eliminate the stigma of mental health in the Kingdom.
Deputising for HRH Princess Muna, Minister of Health Mahmoud Sheyyab said the two-year mental health strategy will serve as a “roadmap” to guide efforts to enhance the quality of mental health services across the country.
He noted that the ministry has established a specialised unit at the National Centre for Mental Health to treat people with mental disorders.
Although the ministry estimates that around 10-25 per cent of the population suffers from psychological problems, WHO representative in Jordan Hashem Zein indicated that no accurate figures are available on the number of Jordanians with mental health problems.
“One of the priorities of the strategy is to conduct field studies to determine the number of people with mental illnesses across the Kingdom,” Zein told The Jordan Times on the sidelines of the launch.
During yesterday’s ceremony, he indicated that mental disorders account for 12 per cent of the global burden of disease and is expected to reach 15 per cent by 2020.
Zein underlined that the region is likely to witness significant increases in the burden of mental illnesses in the upcoming decades.
“Effective interventions are available but not accessible for the vast majority of those who need them… we expect that investments in mental health will lead to more humane services,” he said.
The WHO representative stressed that Jordan suffers a lack of staff in the area of mental health, particularly medical cadres.
“The strategy will focus on mechanisms to cover the shortage in this regard,” he added.
The health ministry has been implementing the WHO Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP) since 2008, under which 15 centres were accredited in Amman, Irbid and Zarqa to merge mental health and primary healthcare services.
Amera Jamal, one of the beneficiaries of the programme, said she lived “isolated” from the world for three years before seeking help.
“It all started when my husband married another woman eight years ago… I used to spend days without talking and cried all the time. I even stopped looking after my children,” the mother of four told The Jordan Times while showcasing handicrafts during an exhibition held on the sidelines of yesterday’s launch for mhGAP beneficiaries.
Jamal said that after three years of suffering, she went to a private physician and was diagnosed with depression.
“I went on antidepressants, but it was too expensive to continue the treatment, so I decided to resort to the Health Ministry,” the Amman resident said.
Now on half an antidepressant a day, Jamal receives healthcare through mhGAP and has managed to gain the personal strength to leave her husband.
Anita Marini, mental health emergency public health officer at WHO, said stories such as Jamal’s are all too common, adding that people with mental health problems are often neglected and hidden by the very people who should be standing beside them.
Marini, who helped draft the mental health strategy, said that shifting treatment from psychiatric wards to the community is one of the main pillars of the plan.
She added that a mental care unit was established at the University of Jordan Hospital and King Abdullah Hospital in Irbid, adding that another one will be established in Maan Public Hospital “soon”.
By Laila Azzeh
Jordan Times