World Mental Health Day today:

Proper treatment vital to control mental Diseases

World Mental Health Day falls today. There will be a series of activities such as identifying patients, subjecting them for proper treatment and presenting vulnerable cases before Community Based Assisting Centres and consultation programmes etc. at provincial and rural levels.

The theme of this year's Mental Day is giving priority on mental patients at global level while socialising them without being taunted or looked down upon in society.

According to World Health Organisation, there is a staggering 450 million disease prone patients in addition to another few lakhs of real patients in the world. This number includes people belonging to all communities irrespective of this age level.

Statistics further reveal that around a million patients commit suicide every year.

Furthermore, approximately 40,000 mental patients enter hospitals in Sri Lanka for treatment while another 4 million people are subjected to disease condition in the country. This situation has been attributed to war, displacement, alcohol consumption, drugs and mental stress etc.

These conditions could be controlled successfully despite the fact that patients hardly go for treatment at proper time.

The entire programme is aimed at encouraging the 70% of these patients to go for proper treatment at these centres, the press release stated.