“Let us turn the current challenge of the pandemic into an opportunity, by thoroughly transforming mental health services in Europe, with human rights as our guide and compass” writes the Council’s Commissioner for Human Rights in the “Comment” published on Wednesday 7 April.
She points to evidence of the “devastating impact” of the Covid-19 crisis: widespread anxiety, damaged family and friendship ties, disrupted access to care... Everyone has been affected, but certain groups, such as children, adolescents, women, people with disabilities, LGBTI people and migrants, have been affected even more.
This tension over the mental health situation and the lack of dedicated services was part of an already failing context, Dunja Mijatović points out, highlighting that in 2019, spending on mental health in the WHO European Region was estimated to account for only 1% of overall health spending.
Urgent reform of mental health services and policies is therefore essential and must be done with due regard to the human rights of patients.
These rights continue to be violated by the services themselves, the Commissioner insists, “notably because they often display a tendency towards paternalism, coercion and institutionalisation”.
As an example, she cites a recent report by the Committee for the Prevention of Torture mentioning beatings and over-medication in Bulgarian prisons, a situation encountered in the majority of Council of Europe member states where, far from decreasing, the excessive use of coercive measures continues to grow, especially when resources are scarce.
Link to the “Human Rights Comment” https://bit.ly/3fPGZ1R (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)