Second Quarter 2002 Newsletter

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The World Health Organizations annual World Health Assembly took place in Geneva on 13-18 May 2002. The 191 member countries of WHO were represented by Health Ministers or their alternates, who worked through an agenda covering the organizations priorities.

Mental health was discussed at length. Following WHOs emphasis on the subject throughout 2001, it is now the focus of a five-year Global Action Program to encourage member states to enhance their capacity building for mental health policy, service development, information gathering, advocacy and research.

WHOs Secretariat provided an excellent report, Mental Health, Responding to the Call for Action, as a background paper for the Assembly. Representatives from 46 member states commented on it. WFMH President Pirkko Lahti had intended to participate in the Assembly and to speak on this item, but she was unable to attend because of illness.

In her absence, WFMHs Permanent Representative in Geneva, Dr. Stanislas Flache, spoke on behalf of the Federation (no other NGO was granted the floor in the debate).
He congratulated WHO on the progress achieved in mental health programs last year, and drew attention to important aspects of the Secretariat report the large numbers of people experiencing mental disorders, the staggering costs involved, the impact of depression as a leading cost of disability, the availability of treatment, and the need for a dual perspective of promotion and prevention. He emphasized WFMHs support for action through primary health care, with equitable treatment for the poor, and expressed its enthusiastic endorsement of the new five-year Global Action Program.

Later the Assembly gave consensus approval to a Belgian draft resolution (WHA55.10) on Mental health: responding to the call for action. This urged member states to support the Global Action Program for Mental Health, and to increase investments in mental health both within countries and in bilateral and multilateral cooperation, as an integral component of the well-being of populations.