With an aim to protect human rights of people with mental disorders and improve mental health services in the low income countries, the First Global Mental Health Summit concluded in Athens on 2 September, 2009. Amidst an overwhelming participation of activists, survivors and service users of mental health, health professionals, international agencies, including the UN, there was representation of participants from over 70 countries. It was the first kind of a summit where there were no formal chairman, spokesperson, and coordinator. It was organized on the spirit of a movement that believes in the equal role and contributions from the members of the movement.
However, some presenters were selected on the basis of open submission of the ideas to guide the agendas of the Summit. The Summit was not based on one-way lectures and demanded more active participation from the participants. I personally applauded the organization of the Summit that broke the conventional idea of a summit, and planted the idea of equality among all participants. Standing on the basis of equality, it made a global call to act on mental health without further delay.
The BBC World Service made an extensive coverage of the Summit and did live broadcasting of the event from Athens. BBC particularly seemed attentive to the miserable conditions of the people with mental disorders in the Third World, and the growing impacts of depression worldwide. Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide, directly affecting over 220 million people. It is the single leading cause of suicide and disability in the world. But such facts are sadly overlooked and underestimated. BBC reported depression to be the single and dominant global challenge. Their hard effort to attract global attention on mental health and its wider social impacts was highly praiseworthy. I was also asked to join the live BBC session from Athens to share my growing concerns with depression.
The Lancet, the London-based prestigious weekly medical journal, dedicated its one issue on mental health and the global movement. In its editorial, it challenged the notion of justice and humanity that ignores the lives of people living with mental disorders and related disabilities. The vulnerability of people with mental disorder is not only the failure of medical science and social system, it is also a failure of humanism.
Still, mental health is alienated from the mainstream society. But, while seeing a global community organized to advocate mental health with an aim to mainstream it in all areas of social life, I was gladdened with hope that we will be the last generation to suffer because of being afflicted with mental disorder, and it will help our next generation stop suffering because of social stigmas and discrimination originating from mental illnesses.
The Summit was inclusive in terms of participation. It was an effort to unite social and medical modalities of mental health in its advocacy. It started a healthy debate among the different stakeholders of mental health sitting face to face. In the history of mental health, it was the first global forum that gave respective space to the voices of users/survivors and their social and human rights concerns.
Addressing a special human rights session at the Summit, Anand Grover, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on health and human rights also showed his full solidarity to campaign for mental health globally to ensure the human rights of people with mental disorders. The caucus reminded me the words of Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of the WHO, who, addressing an event on October10, 2008, on the occasion of World Mental Health Day that falls every year on the same day, had said that “care for these highly prevalent, persistent, and debilitating disorders is not a charity. It is a moral and ethical duty. It is a pro-poor strategy. It makes good economic sense. And it is entirely feasible.” Such a reminder boosted the Summit with full commitment to endorse mental health and related disabilities as a social and human rights issue.
People don’t take depression seriously: Goetze
Kathryn Goetze, a depression survivor, is the US-based international mental health activist. She is the founder of the International Foundation for Research and Education on Depression (IFRED). She runs Field of Hope, a depression campaign, in Ghana. She is committed to rebranding the public perception of depression. Recently, she was in Athens at the First Global Mental Health Summit as a panelist to talk about the strategy of future mental health. Here is the excerpt of a talk with her in Athens:
What did you feel about the Summit?
I thought the Summit was a great start for Mental Health – and a meeting that was long overdue. It’s critical that everyone in the mental health field work together to show a unified front. I thought the summit was a good start for starting such conversations, and look forward to it growing significantly through all of our hard work.
How do you look forward towards the future of the Movement?
I think the movement has a great future if people follow through with their commitments. I look forward to getting additional countries involved, gaining power by numbers, and making mental health a global priority for people both in and outside the field.
Why is your work focused on depression?
I have an MBA in Marketing and have been working in the field for over 15 years. I found that the ‘brand’ for depression was extremely discouraging. I always felt bad after researching the disease that has affected both myself and my family members, but I couldn’t understand why. As I did further research, I realized that the brand ‘image’ associated with depression was a gray photo of persons with their heads in their hands. I think of the famous phrase ‘A picture can speak a thousand words’ and I found this to convey hopelessness, sorrow, pain, and loneliness. Who would want to learn about that cause, or help fund it if it was hopeless? But depression is far from hopeless, as upto 80% of cases are treatable. Unfortunately, less than 25% of those with depression are getting treated.
Could you share with me about your campaigns on depression in the US and abroad?
Our organization is working to create a unified, positive, cohesive brand for depression. We’re focusing on the outcome of treatment – joy, happiness, and inspiration – and using that concept throughout all of our activities and marketing materials, and encouraging others to do the same.
Right now, we have Field of Hope in Ghana at www.thefieldofhope.org and Mental Health America at www.brightenourworld.com. These are both potential worldwide fundraisers that anyone can join and use to raise money for their specific nonprofit organizations. We’re lighting the night yellow for depression, and the color yellow and the symbol of the sunflower are the two images that people should think of first when approached with depression – a disease that is treatable – thus bringing people joy and optimism after treatment.
What threats of depression you are seeing in this century?
The greatest threat of depression is the continuation of our current state. People don’t take this disease seriously, nor give money or time to it. They focus on the outcomes of untreated depression – smoking cessation courses, alcoholic rehabilitation programs, weight management clinics, and other programs. We need to have a focus more on prevention than treatment. If we reach the prediction of WHO’s by 2020 without timely addressing the mental health, it will be the biggest tragedy for this century.
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I´m 37 and I have been suffering of depression and PD for 37 years. I would give my life if the consequence were that nobody else would suffer the weight of stigma, which seems to be another illness itself. We ("mental disordered people") still have to fight for our basic rights, but this is obviously something that goes against our condition! I think that if I were able to fight, half of my problems would not exist at all.
According to me, one of the challenges to win is this
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