Dear Friends,
Around the world, PIH clinicians are providing lifesaving care to impoverished communities, often with limited resources.
An essential part of that commitment? Mental health care.
Mental health care is a vital component of all health care. Before COVID-19, there was on average only one psychiatrist to serve 200,000 people across half the world. When COVID-19 increased the burden of psychiatric illness, it left millions without the therapy and medications they need to lead fulfilling lives, and in many cases, survive.
Mental health care helps people rejoin their families at home.
It allows survivors of trauma to recover with dignity.
In hospitals, trained mental health care providers can help patients weather the emotional and psychological storms of intense illness or injury.
And there is nowhere where the cruel absence of specialists and medications is felt more strongly than at under-resourced and understaffed hospitals in impoverished communities. That’s because, without proper medications or paid staff, they can often resemble prisons for mental health patients more than institutions of care.
