How to convince politicians that mental health is a priority

Abstract

Politicians, especially ministers of health, are crucial to drive national policy and strategy, because they can bring political will to bear on decision making, speed up decision making, and steer decisions in a specific direction. Therefore it is important to persuade politicians that mental health should be a priority. One of the most helpful things a minister of health can do to make mental health a real priority is to ensure that mental health is well integrated into the national health sector strategic plan at each level (community, primary care, district, provincial and national). This will make it much more likely that community based and primary care health staff will see mental health as an integral part of their work, that district staff will see mental health as an essential part of their support responsibilities to primary care alongside other health priorities, and that provincial level staff will see it as a priority to support the districts within each province to deliver local mental health services. Similarly, it is helpful for the minister to facilitate liaison between health and other relevant sectors (e.g., education, social welfare, criminal justice), so that mental health is appropriately integrated with each of their strategic plans (1,2). Within the health sector itself, it is likely to be better for population health outcomes to focus on integrating mental health into the general health system rather than seeking a parallel vertical funding and delivery system (3), in the light of growing evidence that other well-funded vertical programmes for communicable diseases have often weakened health systems' capacity to address broader health needs (4).