Number of People with Mental Problems has Increased

Business International Association of the Parliament gave a Round Table on the topic: "Better Mental Health for Socially Excluded Population”

The event was organized by the fund “Global Initiative in Psychiatry-Tbilisi" and the Coalition for Georgian Mental Health. The Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Welfare as well as representatives of Parliamentary Committee for Health Care and Social Issues, representatives of the non-governmental organizations who work in the field took part in the event.

Otar Toidze, the member of Health Committee of the Parliament stated the meeting aims at working out recommendations to the Georgian Parliament and Government that in order to take them into consideration while preparing the document on mental health policy. The document shall reflect activities that should be implemented to resolve the problems in the field during next five years. First of all infrastructure of hospitals shall be established and relevant medical service shall be provided on the place.

One of the priorities is to ensure social welfare for mentally disabled people and to employ them. The important issue is to change negative attitude towards similar patients.

According to official information, worsened socio-economic situation for the recent 15 years caused triple increase of number of mentally disabled people and their number reached 107 thousand that makes 2 per cent of total population.
 
As a rule unofficial data shows bigger figures.

The meeting participants discussed the necessity to increase the funds of the programs for mentally disabled people in the state budget. Current budget of the field is 9, 5 million lari. We need at least 70-80 million lari to provide mentally disabled patients with efficient medical assistance.

Source: Medianews