Creating comprehensive mental health system in Ukraine – Yuliia Mazur on efforts to solve this issue

According to the WHO, 22% of the population are likely to face various mental health issues in the conditions of crises and crisis response or humanitarian response. In Ukraine, the number of people with such problems is about 10 million.

The Coordination Headquarters has already been launched under the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine to combine efforts at all levels in order to create a comprehensive mental health system in the country.

Yuliia Mazur, an analyst at the Mental Health Coordination Center under the Cabinet of Ministers, made this statement during a briefing at Media Center Ukraine – Ukrinform.

“The Coordination Center under the Cabinet of Ministers was created in the last days of March, and its task is to combine the efforts of both the central executive and the regional level authorities in order to coordinate the activities of the state and non-state sectors focused on building a network and coming together to create a comprehensive mental health system. Something we never had before. We used to have an understanding that there is a part of the medical system called psychiatry, but the fact is that this concept is much broader and it really needs capacity building, and that’s the understanding we have now,” she explained.

According to Yuliia Mazur, all ministries presented their priority projects in this field. And each of them aims to work in a certain direction.

“For example, the Social Policy Ministry is currently working on creating a network of community sustainability centers. The Ministry of Internal Affairs is developing an algorithm for emergency crisis response in emergency situations with the involvement of not only the psychological service of the State Emergency Service, but also other interested parties,” she said and emphasized that such work is being conducted with all key stakeholders and ministries.

In addition, Yuliia Mazur noted that after the adoption of the resolution on the creation of Coordination Centers for the support of the civilian population, the work started to create such centers in the regions. These centers are to coordinate all these actions, including in terms of protecting the mental health of the population.

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