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World Mental Health Day observed
Belgrade,
10 October 2008
President of the National Mental Health Commission at the Ministry of Health Dusica Lecic-Tosevski stated today that the goal of the Mental Health Protection Strategy is improvement of mental health as every state’s greatest treasure.
At a pres conference on October 10, the World Mental Health Day, Lecic-Tosevski said that the strategy envisages hospital reconstruction, fewer hours of hospital treatment, better quality of treatment and prevention of mental illnesses.
Presenting the results of a research themed "Years of Stress – Consequences in Serbia", she said that 23.6% of Serbian citizens suffer from fear-related disorders, 26.1% from aggression, 10% from panic fear and 18% from post-traumatic stress disorder.
According to her, 70 million people in the world is suffering from alcoholism, 24 million from schizophrenia, 50,000 from epilepsy and 10–20 million people attempt to commit suicide every year, of which number one million are successful.
She said that according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), right after mass non-contagious diseases, most people are affected by depression.
Projections say that by 2010, depression will be the first on the list of diseases affecting the largest number of people, said Lecic-Tosevski and added that 25% of the population will develop a mental disorder in their lifetime.
Speaking about the conditions of treating mental illnesses, Lecic-Tosevski said that there are 46 medical centres with 7,000 beds, one half of which is in large hospitals, and added that the average time of healing is from 31 to 153 days.
She said that patients do not use the benefits of the primary health care enough, adding that special attention must also be paid to patients’ destigmatisation in which the media should have an important role.
WHO deputy head of office in Serbia Melita Vujovic said that 57% of countries of the WHO’s European region adopted strategic documents on mental health protection, while 47% introduced new and updated the existing ones.
Presenting the report of the European WHO comprising 42 countries, she said that only 17 countries have data on the number of persons receiving social wellfare or pensions due to mental disorder.
The World Mental Health Day, which has been osberved since 1922, is marked this year under the slogan “Mental Illness Is Not Contagious, but Indifference Is”.
Presenting the results of a research themed "Years of Stress – Consequences in Serbia", she said that 23.6% of Serbian citizens suffer from fear-related disorders, 26.1% from aggression, 10% from panic fear and 18% from post-traumatic stress disorder.
According to her, 70 million people in the world is suffering from alcoholism, 24 million from schizophrenia, 50,000 from epilepsy and 10–20 million people attempt to commit suicide every year, of which number one million are successful.
She said that according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), right after mass non-contagious diseases, most people are affected by depression.
Projections say that by 2010, depression will be the first on the list of diseases affecting the largest number of people, said Lecic-Tosevski and added that 25% of the population will develop a mental disorder in their lifetime.
Speaking about the conditions of treating mental illnesses, Lecic-Tosevski said that there are 46 medical centres with 7,000 beds, one half of which is in large hospitals, and added that the average time of healing is from 31 to 153 days.
She said that patients do not use the benefits of the primary health care enough, adding that special attention must also be paid to patients’ destigmatisation in which the media should have an important role.
WHO deputy head of office in Serbia Melita Vujovic said that 57% of countries of the WHO’s European region adopted strategic documents on mental health protection, while 47% introduced new and updated the existing ones.
Presenting the report of the European WHO comprising 42 countries, she said that only 17 countries have data on the number of persons receiving social wellfare or pensions due to mental disorder.
The World Mental Health Day, which has been osberved since 1922, is marked this year under the slogan “Mental Illness Is Not Contagious, but Indifference Is”.
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