WHO says we have a mental health crisis!

The World Health Organization (WHO) says the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic was responsible for a 25% increase in the prevalence of anxiety and depression worldwide.

In its scientific brief issued in March 2022, WHO has highlighted the effects of the pandemic on certain groups of the global community. WHO points to isolation as one of the key factors in the alarming stats, added to “constraints on people’s ability to work, seek support from loved ones and engage in their communities.

“Loneliness, fear of infection, suffering and death for oneself and for loved ones, grief after bereavement and financial worries have also all been cited as stressors leading to anxiety and depression. Among health workers, exhaustion has been a major trigger for suicidal thinking.”

The review says young people and women were the worst hit and the latest Global Burden of Disease study says these impacts have had a disproportionate increase in the risk of suicidal and self-harming behaviours.

In the Australian state of Victoria, where its capital city is the second most locked-down city in the world with 263 days of isolation, in 2020, partway through the first of its long lockdowns, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) said there was a 33% increase in hospitalisation in children with mental health and self-harm issues compared with the year before. Among the entire population of the state, the increase was 9.3%... and that was only partway through the pandemic.

"a 33% increase in hospitalisation in children with mental health and self-harm..."

Australia’s mental health and suicide prevention phone service, Lifeline, said across all of Australia it saw a 25% increase in phone calls from people reaching out for help. In raw terms, that was the equivalent of one extra phone call every 30 seconds, or 2880 people a day.

The response from the government in that State has been to place band-aids over the issue, as it has been for pretty much every jurisdiction globally. The problems lie deeper than just money, although the lack of resources in terms of the number of psychiatrists, treatment centres and intervention clinics are major issues, it is also about dependence on anti-depressants as well as a continued lack of awareness and stigmatisation of mental health. It is about a treatment philosophy.

WHO says there is a gap in the care provided, especially during the pandemic when many services were shut down at their time of greatest need.

90% of the member states of WHO have said they are working to provide mental health and psychosocial support to COVID-19 patients and responders alike, but make no mention of the other people harmed during the pandemic. It also says there needs to be a step-up in investment when dealing with the issues.

In 2020, WHO’s Mental Health Atlas estimated that governments on average, devote only a little more than 2% of their health budget to mental health, which is well below the level needed to impact the crisis.

It is data like this that is driving what we are doing at MindBio Therapeutics, and we say this is just not good enough. The crisis was bad before the pandemic, now it is critical. We have reports of people waiting 9 months or more to see a psychiatrist and online services with shorter waiting times charging $750 or more an hour for a first consultation.

Our research into the microdosing of LSD is returning amazing data that will continue to drive the future of our research. But we are looking at the issues of mental health in a broader sense too, and we are looking at digital intervention and other technology-aided solutions for better well-being as well as other ways to positively impact this crisis.

We are on a crusade for change and we won’t stop until we helped to deal with the global crisis in mental health. Until we have helped to change lives.

#mentalhealth #mentalhealthcrisis #medicinalpsychedelics #psychedelics $BLR