Today, Tuesday, the Minister of Health, Dr. Firas Al-Hawari, affirmed the Ministry’s commitment to building impenetrable and equitable health systems that include mental health services.

This came during Al-Hawari’s meeting with a delegation of experts from the World Health Organization, the United Nations Working Group on Noncommunicable Diseases and the United Nations Development Program, which is visiting the Kingdom with the aim of conducting a special study on investing in mental health in Jordan in cooperation with the Ministry.

Al-Hawary said that the study comes at an appropriate time to measure the benefits of expanding mental health services and addressing public health challenges.

He added that conducting this study is a pioneering example of cooperation between the government, international organizations and development partners, noting everyone’s commitment to work together to implement the interventions described in the investment case study and improve mental health services in Jordan.

During the meeting, Al-Hawari reviewed the reality of mental health in the Kingdom and the Ministry’s services in this field, stressing that the Ministry is working to improve and facilitate access to mental health services at various levels.

He explained that persons with disabilities, including psychological disabilities, are granted health insurance that enables them to obtain all the services of the Ministry’s hospitals and affiliated health centers, including diagnosis, evaluation, treatment, admission to hospitals and follow-up in clinics.

Al-Hawary indicated that the Ministry, in cooperation with the World Health Organization and the International Medical Corps, has established psychological and community clinics and admission units in a number of hospitals and health centers, which facilitated patients’ access to mental health services, in addition to training health personnel on the program of bridging the gap in mental health, and institutionalizing this. The program is to be one of the requirements for obtaining specialization for family medicine doctors, in order to achieve the integration of mental health in health care.

For her part, the representative of the World Health Organization in Jordan, Dr. Jamila Al-Raabi, said: Strengthening policies and increasing investment in the field of mental health is a major goal of public health and sustainable development.

She added that the WHO and the Ministry of Health, in cooperation with the United Nations Development Program, have formed a specialized team to study the economic justification for investing in mental health in Jordan, which helps to understand and estimate the costs of mental health cases borne by the health sector in particular, and the national economy in general.

In her turn, the Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Program in Jordan, Randa Abu Al-Hassan, stressed that mental health is a human right, and it is necessary to achieve sustainable development.

She pointed out that the study of the case of investment in mental health in Jordan is a crucial step to ensure inclusiveness and access to mental health services of high quality for all.

This study on investing in mental health helps to understand the economic impact of mental health conditions through a methodology developed by the World Health Organization and the United Nations Development Program that will provide an analysis of the expected costs and health benefits.

The study includes a three-day workshop aimed at strengthening policies and increasing interest and investment in mental health as a major goal of public health and sustainable development within the 2030 Agenda of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Mental health is considered one of the important issues that affect the individual and the family in all societies, as the Corona pandemic has exacerbated and created new challenges that have increased the demand for mental health services in the world.