Resident Coordinator’s Remarks for WHO Regional Meeting for the Development of the South-East Asia Region Mental Health Action Plan, 2023-2030

Distinguished experts, WHO colleagues and friends.

It is an honor to speak to you about opportunities and challenges as we continue developing the WHO’s regional action plan on mental health. 

Worsening mental health outcomes are an emerging global challenge and we will need concerted actions and broad-based partnerships to improve them. 

The WHO’s forward-leaning agenda lays the groundwork for Ministries of Health across the region to re-strategies and reconfigure their engagement for effective results. 

This will be crucial as globally nearly a billion people suffer from poor mental health, with anxiety and depression alone costing the global economy around a trillion dollars annually. 

Despite this, it often stays invisible by being left undiagnosed and untreated with profound emotional, social, and economic repercussions.

Within ASEAN too mental health disorders are taking their toll. This includes Thailand. 

In a recent online survey by the Department of Mental Health 10% of the respondents reported suffering from depression with nearly 6% reported feeling suicidal at times. 

Alarmingly, many children and adolescents are also affected by mental health problems. In a UNICEF-led survey, 1 in 7 teenagers reported having mental health disorders. 

This problem is more pronounced among girls than boys, highlighting a gender disparity with different behavioral manifestations.

Anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation are common, among youth, as are substance and alcohol abuse. 

However, Thailand is well placed to handle these challenges thanks to its universal healthcare scheme and robust healthcare system. 

Thailand has a dedicated mental health program under the Ministry of Public Health. These services are well integrated into primary and the community-level health system, covering the health needs of people across their lifespans.

We can leverage these structural strengths to extend mental health provision even further in partnership with the WHO by expanding community-based treatments and rehabilitation in collaboration with local authorities and the country’s 1 million health volunteers. 

As part of its action plan, the WHO is calling for a strategic shift in the delivery of mental health services from hospitals to community-based systems to increase access, engage families better and lessen stigmas on mental disorders. 

We are already seeing this shift taking place with far more persons accessing community-based mental health services. 

By expanding these services further, we can achieve even greater results. But for that we will need to make it a priority for the Ministries of Health to investment in them.

Currently, annual spending on mental health in Thailand amounts to a little over 2% of overall health expenditure with over 80% of this funding allocated to mental hospitals. This implies that not enough funding is left for community-based services.

At the same time, the UN Country Team will also need to do more by adopting a whole-of-UN approach under the leadership of the WHO.

The UNCT will need to leverage its partnerships better with the private and public sector as well as civil society to promote mental wellbeing.

Several UN agencies are already working on this. In one initiative, UNICEF is supporting the Government in developing a costed integrated mental health and psychosocial support plan for children and adolescents. 

UNICEF is also equipping parents, caregivers, and teachers with tools to help children build their resilience for mental wellbeing. 

This is critical as there is a shortage of trained mental health professionals in with only 203 psychiatrists, 187 psychologists and 1,907 mental health nurses, in Thailand. 

At the same time, we will have to expand outreach to the most vulnerable, including migrants and people with disabilities. 

In a pilot UNHCR, together with the government, is training volunteers among refugees in camps to protect and promote residents’ mental health and psychosocial wellbeing. 

We have also been engaging with youth with disabilities in the context of mental health. 

I am not a health expert but allow me as Resident Coordinator to offer some priorities in the context of Thailand.

Importantly, we should harness the power of communication to raise awareness on mental wellbeing. A key part of our advocacy targets removing stigmas on mental health disorders. 

In partnership with the private sector, we have been bringing attention to young people’s mental health challenges through social media, which needs to be scaled up.  

A recent initiative involved the use of large digital billboards in nine major cities from Chiang Mai to Bangkok to Songkhla to remove the stigma on mental health disorders which I understand got about a million eyeballs.

In reaching out to young people, we can also mainstream and integrate mental health challenges into existing initiatives such as UNFPA’s pioneering “Teen Club” digitalized service, which reaches 50,000 young people to take better reproductive health decisions.

Similarly, we can take advantage of the drive and talent of young people from across Thailand to help us make a difference. 

At the SDGs Youth Panel at the UN, which serves as an advisory board for me and agency heads, I am in regular contact with young people who are all agents of change in various social and environmental issues. I am going to reach out to them to see how they could also become champions on mental health and inspire others to do so as well.

Finally, I believe we can also expand community-based telemedicine initiatives around Thailand to boost mental health outcomes. 

In one such initiative led by WHO health volunteers are helping raise awareness of hypertension and its risks. We could incorporate mental health into the remit of these volunteers for transformative changes.  

Today’s event is an excellent opportunity to flesh out strategies, including quick wins. I am very much looking forward to all the expert insights.

Thank you.