President for lifestyle changes, modern facilities to treat mental illness

ISLAMABAD, Mar 12 (APP):President Dr Arif Alvi Thursday stressed for changes in the lifestyle and setting up of modern facilities to address the growing mental health issues in the country which had already affected up to 16 percent of country’s population.

Addressing the inaugural session of the All Parliamentary Mental Health Summit at Aiwan-e-Sadr, the president said the sleeplessness and lack of exercise could lead to mental stress as sleep helped to wipe out unnecessary thoughts which otherwise burdened the mind.

The summit was organized by National Parliamentary Task Force on Sustainable Development Goals, Pakistan Institute of Living and Learning and The University of Manchester.

Convener of the parliamentary task force Riaz Fatyana, Chief Executive Officer of Pakistan Institute of Living and Learning Professor Nasim Chaudhry and Mayor of Karachi Wasim Akhtar besides experts and academicians
from UK, Canada and from across Pakistan, attended the event.

He said the happiness and stress were opposed to each other; however the social welfare tasks were always the biggest source of happiness. He said one should not link his happiness with the materialistic development as it gave a temporary and short-bout of pleasure.

The president said the biggest advantage of the joint family system had been socializing to know each other’s problems. He said as the people had started adopting individualistic lifestyle, they should yet be quick to share the problems causing mental stress which was also an effective soothing strategy.

He called for promotion of professional medical skills to guide the patients to help relieve their stress.

He said owing to stigmas attached with mental health, the families usually avoided to disclose such issues.

As a solution, the federal government had decided to study the stress level of school children which would help trace out the root-causes of stress in their families, if any, he added.

The president also called for media’s role to educate the masses on mental health through awareness drives and dramas discussing the illness.

He strongly called for introducing a mechanism where the traumatized patients could contact to seek any remedy from the experts, instead of committing suicide.

In his address, Riaz Fatyana said mental health conditions were one of the most common causes of disability worldwide which was also a major cause of grown trend of suicides every year.

He said mental health was a neglected field in Pakistan where 10 to 16 percent of the population suffered from mental health issues from mild to moderate psychiatric illness.

He said unfortunately, majority of the affected population was women. There is one psychologist for every 10,000 persons suffering from mental illness while one child psychologist for four million children.

He said the summit was aimed at promoting awareness and develop a comprehensive mental health strategy for 2020-2030 to help Pakistan meet the 17 SDGs.

Professor Nasim Chaudhry highlighted the groundbreaking world class researches conducted by the institute on the mental health issues including suicides, maternal depression and others.

She hoped that with the coordinated efforts, Pakistan would be able to get a national mental health strategy within 18 months.

Professor Nusrat Hussain of Manchester University said it was a must to bring together all stakeholders and services to get their input and formulate strategies accordingly as mere one city or province could not tackle the issue.

He said maternal depression, premature birth and infant mortality cases were among the highest in Pakistan.