{"id":4611,"date":"2022-05-19T11:03:33","date_gmt":"2022-05-19T16:03:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/heartandvascularmed.com\/?p=4611"},"modified":"2022-05-19T11:03:33","modified_gmt":"2022-05-19T16:03:33","slug":"first-ever-meeting-of-who-mental-health-coalition-focuses-on-ukrainians-resilience-and-concrete-steps-towards-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ahvmed.com\/?p=4611","title":{"rendered":"First-ever meeting of WHO mental health coalition focuses on Ukrainians\u2019 resilience and concrete steps towards change"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n

The first-ever meeting of the Pan-European Mental Health Coalition, a new network of organizations and individuals aiming to transform mental health systems across the WHO European Region, gathered to discuss ways to support the mental health of people in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

The meeting, held on 4\u20135 May, kicked off with an hour-long briefing led by WHO experts and mental health care practitioners supporting Ukraine. This focused on the extraordinary efforts being made to maintain the Ukrainian mental health system and support the mental health needs of people in Ukraine, as well as refugees fleeing into neighbouring countries.<\/p>\n

The war in Ukraine is affecting the mental health of millions through direct exposure to violence and atrocities, displacement and family separation. The health system in Ukraine has been similarly impacted, with WHO recording over 200 attacks on health care since 24 February.<\/p>\n

\u201cWeeks of war in Ukraine have led to incalculable uncertainty, insecurity, grief and loss. Attacks on health care are depriving countless people of hope and access to services. Food insecurity and safety concerns are rampant in Ukraine and neighbouring countries. Hostilities are causing immeasurable loss of lives and livelihoods, forced displacement and family separation,\u201d said Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201cUkraine\u2019s mental health system, strengthened over several years following WHO\u2019s special initiative on mental health, is already responding \u2013 through large-scale training of volunteers, promotion of self-care tools, and support to the most vulnerable in institutions across the war-torn country,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is not a boy, a girl, a woman or a man who is not affected by the current crisis,\u201d said Alisa Ladyk-Bryzghalova, National Professional Officer at the WHO Country Office in Ukraine. \u201cAnd we try, as WHO, to support people as much as possible to overcome the consequences of the crisis for their mental health.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms Ladyk-Bryzghalova and her colleague, Fahmy Hanna, Technical Officer at the WHO Department of Mental Health and Substance Use, spoke via video message after an airstrike which disrupted internet services in Lviv.<\/p>\n

Coalition \u201cvital\u201d for advancing mental health<\/h3>\n

Speaking during the meeting, Stella Kyriakides, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, said that the war in Ukraine \u201ccompounds the mental health challenges that we have before us,\u201d \u2013 many of which were revealed by COVID-19. \u201cAnd that\u2019s why this Coalition is so vital.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meeting people\u2019s mental health needs during emergencies is a key area of work for the Coalition, 1 of 6 working packages discussed over the 2 days, by over 150 participants \u2013 including country representatives, staff of international nongovernmental organizations, mental health experts and people living with mental health conditions.<\/p>\n

These working packages aim to position mental health as not merely one sector of the health-care system but as the heart of any functioning society \u2013 supported in workplaces, schools and communities, for all ages and groups. In more concrete terms, Coalition members are working on identifying good practices and tools and then delivering a framework for these practices to be easily adapted to specific settings and cultures.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should aim at a fully inclusive European plan that would boost Member States to foster a new approach to the concept of mental health,\u201d said Stelios Kympouropoulos, Member of the European Parliament. He called for mental health to be a political priority for all governments, with \u201csignificant financial investment at the level of scientific research and human resources\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Ukraine briefing illustrated that a well-planned mental health system made up of well-trained, motivated professionals and volunteers can endure even in the most dire circumstances. Oleksii Kostiuchenkov, a psychiatrist of the Community Mental Health Team in Donetsk oblast in Ukraine, spoke of the adaptability of his team in spite of large-scale evacuations of patients with mental health conditions. \u201cWe continue to consult with our patients online and by phone,\u201d he explained. He was followed by Natalia Morhun, a family doctor from the same area implementing the WHO Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGap).<\/p>\n

Within days of the outbreak of war, WHO\/Europe deployed a team of mental health professionals to Ukraine and neighbouring countries, setting up and leading working groups to coordinate with governments and other aid organizations, including the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the United Nations Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). These partners worked together to provide survivors with all manner of mental health support \u2013 from basic security and family support to specialized services for people with severe mental health conditions. Ms Ladyk-Bryzghalova highlighted a stress management programme that WHO had jointly organized with the Ukrainian ministries of health and social policy.<\/p>\n

Hope for change, and determination to see that change through, was the main focus throughout the Ukraine briefing and the remaining 2 days of the Coalition meeting, when members met in small working groups to begin designing the working package content. There are plans to test some of the working packages in several countries by year end.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first-ever meeting of the Pan-European Mental Health Coalition, a new network of organizations and individuals aiming to transform mental health systems across the WHO European Region, gathered to discuss ways to support the mental health of people in Ukraine.The meeting, held on 4\u20135 May, kicked off with an hour-long briefing led by WHO experts…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":4612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4611","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medicalnewstoday_com"},"menu_order":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ahvmed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ahvmed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ahvmed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ahvmed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ahvmed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ahvmed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ahvmed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ahvmed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ahvmed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ahvmed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}