World Mental Health Day is celebrated every year on 10 October. It was started in 1992 at the initiative of the World Federation for Mental Health. The purpose of World Mental Health Day is to raise awareness about and support mental health in the world. Mental Health Week is also celebrated in Australia and many other countries to raise awareness of mental health or illness.
Every year this day is celebrated with a new theme. But this year the theme of ‘Make Mental Health and Well-Being for All a Global Priority’ has been kept by the World Federation for Mental Health.
India started its National Mental Health Program (NMHP) in 1982, which aimed to develop mental health services. The National Mental Health Survey published one of its reports in the year 2016. According to this, 1 in 20 people in India suffer from mental illness.
Section 21(4)-A of the Indian Mental Health Care Act, 2017 provides that there shall be no discrimination between mental illness and physical illness. And every insurer may use medical insurance for the treatment of mental illness in the same way as it does for the treatment of physical illness. But most insurance companies exclude a large number of mental illnesses from the full coverage of their policies.
Let’s know the history of World Mental Health Day. It was started on 10 October 1992 at the initiative of Richard Hunter, Deputy Secretary-General of the World Federation for Mental Health. For the first few years, its purpose was to educate or make the general public awareness of mental health.
But every year since 1994, on the suggestion of Secretary-General Eugene Brody, this day was celebrated with a new theme. For the first time, its theme was “Improving the Quality of Mental Health Services Around the World”. On the occasion of World Mental Health Day in 2018, UK Prime Minister Theresa appointed Jackie Doyle as the country’s first Suicide Prevention Minister.