| Description: | Although there has not been a comprehensive study done to give information on prevalence and
burden of mental health issues in the Maldives there are a few surveys that suggest that it is on the
rise. This has further intensified due to the sudden halt that came with regards to COVID-19 pandemic
in 2020, with which ‘brought an unprecedented economic shock, severely weakening the fiscal and
external position, threatening the economic and developmental gains in the Maldives. Furthermore, it
brought about increase in mental health issues and increase in people who sought mental health
support. This is indicated by the statistics of Center for Mental Health at IGMH.
The National Resilience and Recovery, released by President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, reflects
implementation of mental health services across the country. Following the National Resilience and
Recovery Plan, Ministry of Health with support of WHO and Mental Health Working Group took
initiative to develop Central and Regional Mental Health Services Development Plan (2021-2025). This
is a guidance document, informed by the guiding principles of the National Mental Health policy, the
Mental Health Strategic Action Plan and the SAP documents. The objective of this document is to guide
through the process of setting up regional mental health services in the Maldives.
The Central and Regional Mental Health Services Development Plan (CRMHSDP) was developed with
input from several group meetings as well as individual meetings with relevant stakeholders including
Health Care facilities across Maldives. The document has proposed a model for Regional Mental Health
Services delivery after analyzing the current functional health delivery model as the developing models.
The five strategic action areas of this plan include; 1- creating leadership, coordination and governance,
2- prevention, 3- clinical treatment and care, 4- human resource capacity building and 5- research, date
collection and guidelines. Overall structure of regional mental health focuses on integration of mental
health services with the existing healthcare system through a community-based approach with strong
referral system, and establishing multi-sectoral collaboration for promotion, prevention, and
management of mental disorders.
The First Strategic Action area emphasizes on leadership, coordination and governance to ensure the
activities are harmonized. The priority interventions for this action includes, establishing the
coordination and service setup mechanism including national steering committee to steer
establishment of regional mental health services, use of data for advocacy strategy development,
monitoring, evaluation and systematic review of the regional mental health services; and resource
mobilization and management for regional mental health services.
The Second Strategic Action Area emphasizes on prevention which will be centric in the national
response, with the objective to raise awareness and give special emphasis on providing special services
to the vulnerable groups such as adolescents, children, victims of the violence or other social issues etc.
prevention work will be mainly carried out by the primary health care teams in the islands. Priority
interventions includes, mental health promotion: increase awareness on mental health issues and
promote skills for taking care of mental health(self-care), prevention: reduce relapse of patients with
severe mental illnesses and targeted prevention programs.
The Third Strategic Action Area emphasizes on clinical treatment and care. Objective is to enhance the
assessments and treatment capacity of regional hospitals and thereby increase the accessibility of the
services. The priority interventions are setting up of infrastructure and systems required to provide
inpatient and outpatient services in all the regional hospitals, Improve the availability of the
psychotropic medicine and clinical interventions to support people with substance use disorder. |
