Uniting together to support mental health for all:
Reflections on World Mental Health Day 2021
By Michael Radano, BCACC Executive Director
On October 10th, people and organizations around the globe will mark World Mental Health Day, an annual awareness and advocacy campaign initiated by the World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH) in 1992. Each year, a theme is chosen by WFMH and partner organizations such as the World Health Authority (WHO) who support the importance of the day by hosting events, providing resources, and creating campaign materials for people to engage with and dig deeper into that year’s theme. This year’s theme is one that resonates deeply with us at BCACC ‘Mental health care for all: let’s make it a reality’.
From the WHO: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on people’s mental health. Some groups, including health and other frontline workers, students, people living alone, and those with pre-existing mental health conditions, have been particularly affected. And services for mental, neurological and substance use disorders have been significantly disrupted.
As I pause and reflect on this year’s theme, I am exploring my own understanding of the different aspects of inequality as it relates to mental health. The past few years especially have highlighted so many disparities and polarization: the very wealthy becoming wealthier while so many experience poverty, racial, ethnic, sexual orientation and gender identity biases, and the lack of respect for human rights in many countries, including for people living with mental health conditions.
Barriers to Access
In B.C. and Canada, mental health care is not as universally available as medical care. Often, socio-economic status and the quality of Employee and Family Assistance Programs (EFAP), if one is so lucky to have access to benefits through their employer, determine if a person receives counselling or other mental health support and to what extent. Other access barriers are related to geographical location and the ability to speak the predominant language of the area in which we live.
Acceptance
Stigma and discrimination towards people who experience mental health issues not only affect that person’s physical and mental health. It also affects their educational opportunities, current and future earning and job prospects, and ripples outward to impact their families and loved ones. We’ve come so far in recognizing that mental health is health, but we still have a ways to go in breaking down barriers to acceptance.
Differing Needs
The COVID19 pandemic has further highlighted the effects of inequality on health outcomes. No nation, however rich, has been fully prepared for this. The pandemic has and will continue to affect people of all ages in many ways: through infection and illness, sometimes resulting in death bringing bereavement and delayed grieving rituals to surviving family members; through the economic impact, with job losses and continued job insecurity; and with physical distancing and social isolation. On top of all these challenges, climate emergencies, political strife, and human rights issues have created greater demand for support.
Global Differences
In general, developed countries devote more of their health budget to mental health care. But globally, access to mental health services remains unequal, with between 75% to 95% of people with mental disorders in low- and middle-income countries unable to access mental health services at all. Even in a country as wealthy as Canada, in any given year 1 in 5 people will personally experience a mental health problem or illness.
Who can help – and how?
As called for by WFMH, we need to act – and urgently. Collaboration, understanding, and commitment are needed. So, what can we as individuals, employers and government entities do to address inequalities and make access to mental health care truly accessible for all?
As individuals, we all have a role to play in addressing inequality and ensuring that people with lived experience of mental health issues are fully welcomed and supported. We should encourage governments across the province and country to dedicate more of their budgets to mental health. Write your MLA and MP and ask that mental health resources are more widely accessible and equitable.
As employers, change happens in the leadership suite. We must be willing to lead with vulnerability, be open and available to have tough conversations, and champion mental health and wellness in the workplace (and beyond). We must walk the talk.
Government entities can revisit and increase the percentage of their overall health budget allocated for mental health. With the pandemic, the Canadian government did increase its budget for mental health care, but as noted by the Canadian Mental Health Association, the mental health system has seen decades of chronic underfunding. The current system in Canada is based on responding to crisis, and to meeting the acute care needs of people with severe mental illness. Earlier access to services at the community level can prevent individuals from needing more cost- and time-intensive interventions down the road. Increased and sustained federal funding directed to community-based mental health organizations to support the mental well-being of all Canadians is required.
BCACC will continue to advocate for the creation and strengthening of support services and equitable access, increased governmental budgets allocated for mental health care, more flexible spending of employer health plans for increased mental health care, and for the provision of culturally sensitive and quality care to the public.
If we all band together and do our part, we can pave the way towards making this year’s World Mental Health Day theme, ‘mental health care for all’, a reality.
