Select Page
To read the full article click here.

Vanuatu is a stunningly beautiful tropical Melanesian country of just over 200,000 people spread across 100 islands. Its history spans from 19th century head‐hunters, to the formation  of the New Hebrides by a ‘condominium’ of French and English rule, to independence in  1980, to recently being rated the place with the happiest people in the world. There are 22  doctors and about 450 nurses in the country.

In 2007 the World Health Organization initiated the Pacific Islands Mental Health Network (PIMHnet) to address the paucity of mental health care in the Pacific region. This network,  which is funded by NZAID, aims to encourage the governments of the area to increase  funding for their country’s mental health infrastructure and workforce, to instigate mental  health  policies and  strategies  at  a  primary  care  level,  to  use  the  WHO  psychotropic  medication list as their formulary and to teach mental health skills to primary care health  professionals. The Ministry of Health in Vanuatu has taken up this challenge. Its mental  health policy and strategy is in its final draft, it is in the process of increasing the formulary  and with the help of NZAID it has begun the task of encouraging teaching in mental health to  health professionals.

We are very blessed in Australia to have a high degree of public awareness about mental health, to have mental health teaching as part of the curriculum for undergraduate and  postgraduate health professionals, to have a strong evidence‐based research base in mental  health and to have government and community support for mental health issues at all  levels. In Vanuatu there are no trained mental health professionals in the entire country,  there is no knowledge in the community that mental illness might be the business of health  professionals,  and  there  are  no  words  in  Bislama  even  for  depression,  let  alone  more  complex Western mental health concepts.

 

To read the full article click here.