Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T03:51:49.939Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Human resources for mental health – challenges and opportunities in developing countries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

R. Srinivasa Murthy*
Affiliation:
National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India, email: [email protected]
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Human resources for mental health are a challenge in all countries. In countries rich and poor, there is a big gap between the need for mental health services and the availability of those services. In an unusual way, the barriers to mental healthcare appear to be universal, which is not true of non-psychiatric healthcare. Nonetheless, the World Health Report 2001 and the World Health Organization's Atlas project have recorded extremely low levels of service in most developing countries (World Health Organization, 2001a,b). The recruitment of consultant psychiatrists from low- and middle-income countries, discussed in the October 2004 issue of International Psychiatry (Ndetei et al, 2004; Jenkins, 2004), raises a number of challenges for both developing and developed countries.

Type
Thematic paper – International recruitment
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits noncommercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 2005

References

Hongoro, C. & McPake, B. (2004) How to bridge the gap in human resources for health. Lancet, 364, 14511456.Google Scholar
Jenkins, C. (2004) Ethical international recruitment. International Psychiatry, issue 6, 1819.Google Scholar
Ndetei, D., Karim, S. & Mubbashar, M. (2004) Recruitment of consultant psychiatrists from low- and middle-income countries. International Psychiatry, issue 6, 1518.Google Scholar
Srinivasa Murthy, R. (2000) Community resources for mental health care in India. Epidemiologia e Psychiatria Sociale, 9, 8992.Google Scholar
Srinivasa Murthy, R. & Wig, N. N. (1983) The WHO collaborative study on Strategies for Extending Mental Health Care, IV: a training approach to enhancing the availability of mental health manpower in a developing country. American Journal of Psychiatry, 140, 14861490.Google Scholar
World Health Organization (2001a) World Health Report 2001. Mental Health: New Understanding, New Hope. Geneva: WHO.Google Scholar
World Health Organization (2001b). Atlas. Country Profiles on Mental Health Resources 2001. Geneva: WHO.Google Scholar
World Health Organization (2003) The World Health Report 2003. Geneva: WHO.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.