Mental health has finally been invited into the title of a major UN health meeting, seven years after the WHO Director General told the UN General Assembly that there was no health without it. The service itself is still outside, clutching the correct form and watching the door lock automatically.
This week’s high level meeting on noncommunicable diseases is, for the first time, also a high level meeting on mental health. A subject previously left in the institutional waiting room has now been allowed onto the sign above the door, where it can be admired by people with lanyards.
The draft political declaration also contains a target for 150 million more people to have access to mental health care by 2030. The word access remains wonderfully elastic, however. It might mean a functioning service, a referral pathway, an app, or an instruction to search for local support while the website is being improved for the ninth consecutive year.
The WHO says the target will require political and financial commitment, action on the social causes of poor mental health, rights based community care, suicide prevention, and investment in children and young people. The Centre for Whole Person Administration welcomed the breadth of the plan and immediately divided it into four departments, nine subcommittees and one portal that requires a password reset every Tuesday.
“Recognition is an important first step,” said Dr Serenity, Director of Urgent Waiting. “The second step is finding out whether recognition has a booking system.”
The meeting name now acknowledges that health and mental health belong together. This corrects the administrative habit of treating the mind as an optional attachment located above the clinically relevant neck. The new arrangement is especially promising for anyone who has ever been directed between services until their problem qualifies as excellent paperwork.
The Bureau of Ambitious Numerators has nevertheless prepared a launch pack containing one slogan, two diagrams and a ceremonial tick.
For now, mental health has secured the headline, the draft target and a place at the table. The care system has secured the minutes and will be invited to contribute once someone confirms whether attendance counts as access. If it does, the target is already halfway achieved, provided nobody asks where the patients are.
Real story: World Health Organization.
