Six Strategies Announced by PAHO as Rights Based approach to mental health comes into Effect

Rashaed Esson

Staff Writer

November 1, 2023 – A new attitude to how mental health is handled has been effectuated with a rights-based approach, emphasized by PAHO Member States.

This comes as the overall attitude to mental health has many shortcomings, one of the most prevalent being the rights of people struggling with mental health disregarded, as mentioned by Dr. Jarbas Barbosa, PAHO Director.

He expressed that people within this cohort often face stigma and discrimination, leading to lack of access to quality care as well as equal opportunity to take part in general community life.

Not only that, the director, speaking on Tuesday October 10th at PAHO TV on YouTube, also said people with mental health struggles are sometimes deprived of their ability to make personal decisions and be subject to coercive practices.

Additionally, Barbosa maintained that many people in the Americas are confined to reside in psychiatric facilities for treatment and having their chance to to be reintegrated into society taken.

“Approximately, 28 percent of these in-patient stays in the region are for a period of more than five years.”

He informed that many countries have mental health laws, 60 percent that is, in the Americas, but fail to comply with the international human rights tools such as the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Considering these facts, the director called for swift deinstitutionalization, allowing people to break from confinement and instead be able to tap community-based services to promote “optimal care, treatment, support and inclusivity.”

The development of the rights based approach rests against the approval of the new Strategy for Improving Mental Health and Suicide Prevention in the Region of the Americas, at the 60th PAHO Directing Council, held on Septmeber 27th, announced in a PAHO Press Release.

Revealed by the press release, the regional strategy established six lines of action to be put into effect, to facilitate a more rights-based approach to mental health.

It says:

1. Build mental health leadership, governance, and multi-sectoral partnerships, and integrate mental health in all policies;
2. Improve the availability, accessibility, and quality of community-based services for mental health conditions, and support the advance of deinstitutionalization;
3. Advance mental health promotion and prevention strategies and activities throughout the life course;
4. Reinforce the integration of mental health and psychosocial support in emergency contexts;
5. Strengthen data, evidence, and research;
6. Make suicide prevention a national whole-of-government priority and build multisectoral capacity to respond to people affected by suicidal behaviors.