The worldwide response to Covid 19 highlights another major plight and ongoing challenge of our modern society. Despite making a lot of advances and progress, mental health stays a very poor second cousin to physical health conditions. The spread of Co-vid 19 was declared a pandemic by World Health Organization in March 2020 and policy makers throughout the world bolted into high drive to take care of the physical dimensions of health and capacity of the acute care systems to handle patients who were falling sick. Population and public health throughout the world rightfully threw a lot of resources into preventing the spread of the virus (which despite best efforts still kept growing in leaps and bounds). The first wave took us by surprise and the world did what it took to create a marveling global effort to contain this beast. We all changed the way we behaved every day.
Despite warnings, we all thought it would be for a short term and our sacrifices were going to pay off soon. Here we are in 2021 which was supposed to be upbeat. Majority of the population is double vaccinated but the spread and orders protecting our physical health continue.
Shouldn’t there have been a greater emphasis on the parallel consideration of mental health sustainability throughout the crisis. Economy was a consideration in a lot of the strategic decision making but the mental health considerations remain limited to date. Our Long term Care facilities became a horror story of not only death and dying but of those who died a thousand deaths everyday due to isolation.
Complete lockdowns, visitation bans, declaration of emergencies, travel bans, encapsulating people in household bubbles all disrupted normal human behavior and social supports. Despite the available use of ever improving platforms, technology just doesn’t create the same endorphins. A broad body of research links social isolation and loneliness to poor mental health. Physical health itself is linked to mental wellness and this is just for your average person. Leave alone the vulnerability of those already suffering from anxiety, mental health and substance use disorders and the resulting family dysfunctions.
According to the Canadian Mental Health Association, more than 6.7 million people are living with a mental health condition in Canada. About 4,000 Canadians per year die by suicide—an average of almost 11 suicides a day. It effects people of all ages and backgrounds.
The World Health Organization warned that alcohol and toxic drug use during the pandemic would potentially exacerbate health concerns and risk-taking behaviors. Deaths due to opiod and toxic drug overdose is the new crisis in BC. Some countries reported up to 53% in rise of use of alcohol.
The UN described the worldwide increase in domestic abuse as a “shadow pandemic” alongside Covid-19. It is thought that cases may have increased by 20% during the lockdown, as many people are trapped at home with their abuser. We still have no handle on these numbers or their long term impacts. They are neither being measured nor being reported in the same consistent and persistent manner as Co-vid numbers.
Co-vid has taught us that we are capable of pivoting the world but if mental health issues could get one quarter of the attention and one tenth of the resources, it would be remarkable progress. Just imagine if there were regular news conferences focused on mental health/substance use. The same strong appeal to citizens for an attitudinal and a behavioral pivot towards those suffering. Counsellors available freely. If there was drive through testing and assessments centers set up everywhere and a plan for the prevention of spread for this malaise and worldwide research into treatment. If we could do effective border control of drugs. Numbers and rule breakers reported regularly.
Once the cameras and microphones retreat from the Co-vid graphs and models, perhaps societies can start to look at what happened to those individuals or households which were already vulnerable, people who sobbed away, drank away or smoked away the lockdowns and the social isolation. Perhaps we can get hungry for those numbers in the same way.
