Experts and politicians called for an EU-wide action plan on mental health and forward progress on the European Commission’s strategy on mental health, due to be implemented in 2023.
Discussions on mental health strategies are expected to begin in July, according to the committee’s agenda.
“We need to make sure that our proposals on mental health are really improving on this subject. He said,
In November, experts and politicians signed a joint memorandum of understanding committing to advance the EU’s mental health response, calling on EU institutions to develop an EU-wide action plan.
This document was presented at the international conference “Resilient Mental Health in the EU” held under the Czech presidency of the EU Council.
“We are in a truly extraordinary situation. We are battling several crises at once. Be careful on the topic of mental health.
The impact of pandemic restrictions, the war in Ukraine and rising costs of living have increased the risk of depression and anxiety among EU citizens. But the EU health system has so far struggled to adapt to the new reality and improve its capacity accordingly.
Systemic difficulties in providing care continue due to low staffing capacity and inadequate space in treatment facilities. In 2019, there were only 73 psychiatric beds per 100,000 population in the EU. Belgium had the highest bed-to-population ratio, while Italy had the lowest.
“When we can put a lot of pressure on the topic of oncology, we need to do the same for other fields and medical issues,” Dvoracek said, referring to Europe’s flagship Beating Cancer Plan. said.
Socialist Czech lawmaker Radka Maksova stressed that mental health is “an integral part of a functioning society”, adding that the topic remains taboo for many countries in the EU.
Highlighting Problems in Addressing Mental Health
“Since 2018, when the European Commission included the topic of mental health on its chronic disease agenda, despite the Finnish presidency in 2019 and its explicit call for a comprehensive EU strategy on mental health, the topic recognition has declined considerably,” the signatory wrote in the document.
Experts have therefore advised policy makers to integrate mental health into existing EU structures and funds and focus on health and social policy.
According to the memorandum’s authors, EU member states should intensify communication and share experiences on the topic, as well as endorse national plans on mental health.
Providing Financial Support, Polite Data The inclusion of people with mental illness in the collection and analysis and decision-making process was also a key factor emphasized by signatories.
innovation in psychiatry
The memorandum also addresses the need for innovative approaches to the treatment of mental illness, such as psychedelics and adjunctive use of psychoactive substances. According to experts, Czech psychiatry is a field that is significantly more advanced than her other EU countries.
Czech psychedelic clinic Psyon says on its website:
After years of being banished as a bystander to scientific research by restrictive government policies, The use of psychedelics for medical purposes, in many forms, is slowly making its way back into the law. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) called MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for post-traumatic stress disorder and psilocybin for depression “breakthroughs.”
Eric Vermeten, a psychiatrist at Leiden University in the Netherlands, said at a conference:
[Edited by Giedre Peseckyte]
