Mental health and suicidal prevention

This article was exclusively written for The European Sting by Mr. Mudasir Umer, a Pakistani undergraduate medical student, now in his 4th year at international university of Kyrgyzstan ISM. The writer is affiliated with the International Federation of Medical Students Associations (IFMSA), cordial partner of The Sting. The opinions expressed in this piece belong strictly to the writers and do not necessarily reflect IFMSA’s view on the topic, nor The European Sting’s one.

Mental health is an emotional, psychological, and social issue. According to WHO 1 in every 8 people are  living with mental health problems, Also in Pakistan more than 20 million Pakistanis (10% of the country’s population) are suffering  from mental health issues. It’s a pandemic disease so we need to discuss and also try to eradicate it from the living world by social gathering and draw new policies on national and international level.
              Most common causes of mental health crises are child abuse, social isolation and poverty. Mostly the young adult age group 16-25 are in a mental health crisis because people are in stage of social transition and discovering the way how they fit and support the community. Mental health issues are also most commonly seen in hospitalized patients, because patients are not properly managed by the staff and prolonged admission will lead patients mentally disturbed. When these mental problem will progress leads to suicide.
            In every 40 seconds, One  person commits suicide somewhere in the world. According to Who, More then 700,000 people commits suicide every year and suicide rate is increased in Covid 19 pandemic. This is one of the major reason of death over the world so we need to increase awareness among people on national and international level, This is also the Government duty to take active action on suicidal activities.
             Developed  country’s governments talk more about human rights and mental health than under-developed countries. They spend nearly 0.7% of their GDP as compared to under-developed countries that spend <0.1% of their GDP.  We arranged awareness programs and social gatherings for mental health. Now this is the  hot cake and so many NGOs are working on mental health like Qasim Ali shah Foundation whose motto is to develop a healthy mind Pakistan. Mental health act 1983 in Washington, DC is to support the people who are suffering from mental health crises. This  act gives empowerment, independence, respect, dignity, and equity among nations. Day by day we see reforms in this act which facilitate people to recover from mental health. In Pakistan according to the Mental health act 2001 which promote, encourage and foster high standard and good practices in the delivery of mental health services, to protect the interests of people who have been involuntarily admitted to an approved center. In a modern world, governments facilitate and subsidize NGOs and social media channels, and promote them to the international level.
             We can also decrease the suicidal attempt by patient education and also prohibit the excess to suicidal way. In develop country most common is gun suicide and hanging form the fan. In this scenario the government gave extra effort on illegal arms dealing. In under-develop country most common suicidal way is weed pill and different agricultural medicine. In this area the government gives  punishment to the culprit. If the government and local people work on the same platform then one day we can eradicate mental health problems.    

About the author

Mudasir Umer is a Pakistani undergraduate medical student, now in his 4th year at international university of Kyrgyzstan ISM. He attained scholarships in school and college. He also received best performance awards in his college. Now he is in Rotary international