Elections are around the corner, and all cards are on the table. Politicians on both sides are slinging mud, trying to undercut the other. Promises are made to increase minimum wage, to create new jobs, to give cash handouts, to ease loans and reintroduce fuel subsidies among other things.
Just several years ago, the government released a report saying that 30% of Malaysians have a mental health issue. In 2015, the very same year this report was released, 193 countries including Malaysia adopted the 2030 agenda for sustainable development set forth by United Nations Development program. For the first time, countries agreed to promote mental health and well-being, to strengthen prevention and treatment programs for substance abuse, to reduce mortality from noncommunicable disease (including behavioural, developmental and neurological disorders) through prevent and treatment programs. These goals are to be achieved by 2030.
Will any party take the bold step of promising to address the urgent mental health crisis in Malaysia? Cash handouts, jobs, fuel subsidies will not alleviate distress of the 250 Malaysians who try to take their lives everyday. It may provide temporary relief to the 3 million Malaysians with poor mental health issue, but we need an explicit commitment from the government, in line with what Malaysia has already agreed to achieve by signing UNDP’s Sustainable Development Goals. There needs to be a significant increase in the budget to prevention and treatment programs from the current .30% health budget allocation to mental health issues. We have 12 years to achieve the UNDP goals. Do the parties have a 12 step plan to make our mental health great again, or will we continue to see an increase of mental health issues year after year?
Dr. Chua Sook Ning
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