Latest update April 18th, 2024 12:59 AM
Oct 10, 2011 News
– Dr. Leslie Ramsammy
Minister of Health Dr. Leslie Ramsammy has spoken out on the lack of investment in mental health for World Mental Health Day on October 10, 2011. He believes that disregarding mental health is directly related to the ongoing problem of poverty.
The Non Communicable Disease (NCDs) High Level Meeting at the UN on September 19th 2011 briefly discussed mental, neurological and substance use disorders, but did not include them on its menu for priority global action, Dr. Ramsammy added.
According to Dr. Ramsammy “Many of us are fighting an uphill battle for recognition of mental health as an imperative for the elimination of poverty and for the attainment of the goal of health for all with physical, social and mental health for every global citizen.”
Those affected with mental disorders are predisposed to poverty and living unproductive lives without medical intervention, not to mention those who will die of their disease that with the right medical attention can be treated.
“In 2001, I objected strenuously to the exclusion of the NCDs from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). And I started an advocacy for the MDG+ to correct the anomaly. In some sense we were vindicated by the fact that a High Level Meeting on the NCDs was held in September 2011. That advocacy movement took a decade to bear results. But it defies all logic that mental health was not considered as part of the fight against the NCDs,” the Health Minister said.
Dr. Ramsammy proclaimed “For all who have stood firm and resolute that we made a grave error in 2000 not to include the NCDs as part of the global development instrument called the MDGs, we today can take a bow that as a world we will now remedy this mistake. We struggled and it was a bruising struggle, but we came out with at least some rewards. The NCDs are part of the development agenda now.
“We will lose the battle against poverty; we will fail to reduce poverty and to eliminate poverty as a human condition as long as we continue to neglect mental health, as long as we continue to treat the mental and neuro-psychiatric disorders and substance abuse as orphan health issues”.
“There is no good health without mental health and there is no way of reducing and eliminating poverty if we are not serious about addressing the neuro-psychiatric disorders.”
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