Mental health initiative – the seventh day

Wonderful are the health initiatives that the Egyptian government has adopted in the recent period, especially since President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi took office, especially since we were previously missing such initiatives that are concerned first with the health of the individual, and the human being given care that was not the priority of previous governments.

Now we have the initiatives of “100 million health to treat chronic diseases, treat breast cancer, and screen for virus C and other diseases”, all under the care and concern of the President personally.

A few weeks ago, Dr. Hatem Hafez, professor of theater at the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts and rapporteur of the Theater Committee of the Supreme Council of Culture, wrote on his personal page on the social networking site “Facebook” a post in which he said, “We need to work for us a 100 million mental health campaign.” At the beginning, some of us looked at To the “post” sarcastically, and some used the “laughing reaction,” but I kept thinking about the meaning that “Hafez” wanted from his post, as the matter is really urgent.

Days passed and during a symposium held at the end of last September, at the Supreme Council of Culture, in which the famous psychiatrist, Dr. Ahmed Okasha, and the advisor to the President of the Republic for Mental Health, said: “The Coronavirus crisis will leave countless psychological diseases, due to the ban that has occurred, and it will become the soul Morale is low, just as Corona afflicts us with emotional desertification. ”At the time, I made sure that we are in dire need of a mental health initiative, and I knew that Dr. Hatem Hafez’s aforementioned words were not a joke and his vision was completely correct.

According to official statistics, about 25% of Egyptians suffer psychological problems, which is a large percentage and explains the nature of Egyptians dealing with mental health. Egyptians do not like to deal with psychiatrists, and some see going to a psychiatrist as a “stigma”, and misconceptions about psychiatry have become In Egypt there are many, and there are even those who describe mental health hospitals as “the bed of the madmen” and prefer to go to quacks rather than psychiatrists, and the strangest thing of all is that there are those who feel psychological fatigue and resort to a neurologist, for example, and not a psychiatrist!

The same thing has created psychologically deformed generations, and made many suffer from countless psychological crises, and by the way, they are almost everywhere around us, and many people have become very suspicious and contradictory in their view of things. To defend the Holy Quran Radio after being ridiculed!

I think that we are a people that has faced many difficulties and many calamities that have made them in dire need to take care of their mental health, and it has become necessary to change our culture of psychiatry and dealing with psychiatrists, and it remains better for ourselves to have a special part of attention and care. I think that an official initiative adopted by the government and the Ministry of Health is an important step in modifying our culture towards this type of medicine, and I imagine that the presence of a Presidential Adviser for Mental Health is a good opportunity to move forward in activating such initiatives that will change a lot of our dealings with life, intellectually, psychologically and even Artistically and culturally.

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