Yemen Ranks the Lowest in the World for Mental Health: International Report

While psychological and mental disorders are increasing in Yemen with the worsening of living conditions and the collapse of the economy, and the health sector is deteriorating due to the practices of the Houthi putschists and the continuation of the war for eight years; An international report showed that Yemen is lagging behind in terms of mental health, as the streets of the capital, Sana’a, and major cities are filled with homeless and mentally disturbed people. Yemen ranked 46th out of 57 countries in the third annual report on the mental state of the world during the year 2022, which was issued by the American “Sabine Labs” organization, which conducts annual online research to understand the state of mental health, and the last report came by collecting data in nine languages. It included half a million people.
According to the report issued in early March; 24.4 percent of the Yemeni respondents struggled to deal with the pressures of daily life.
However, the report did not refer to the relationship between the war and the difficult living conditions experienced by several countries, including Yemen. Mental disorder, and focused on the impact of other factors such as the Corona pandemic, family stability, problems, and lack of love and emotional warmth during childhood.
In addition to the collapse of the health sector in Yemen; Psychological and mental health suffers from a lack of governmental and international attention since before the coup and the war, a lack of funding, a lack of specialized medical personnel, in addition to societal neglect and lack of awareness of its importance, and the spread of unscientific habits of dealing with patients, which amount to sorcery and superstition.
A researcher at the University of Sana’a describes the findings on Yemen in the “Sabine Labs” report as inaccurate and objective. Because the research was conducted through electronic communication channels and not through field research, and a sample of Internet users in Yemen was used, and they represent a small percentage of Yemeni society, and often they are more able to face life pressures than those who do not have access to the Internet.
The researcher, who asked Asharq Al-Awsat to hide his data due to his work at the university run by the Houthi militia, asks, “Where are the war victims from this research? There are those who witnessed the horrors of bombing, mines, the siege of cities, and the killing of their relatives and friends before their eyes, and there are victims of arbitrary arrests, detention and torture, in addition to the impact of unemployment, interruption of salaries and the high cost of living.
He continues by saying, “The research was general and did not take into account the specificities of many countries, including Yemen. It did not include children, and even adults, who returned from the fronts to which the Houthi militia drove them and were trained to practice violations and crimes. It contains incitement that disturbs the psychological and societal structure.”
The Yemeni academic estimated the percentage of those residing in militia-controlled areas who suffer from mental disorders to be about a third of the population, by looking at limited data and reports of organizations, official agencies and hospitals, in addition to what he observes in daily life.
Last October, the World Health Organization estimated the number of Yemenis who suffer from psychological problems due to the eight-year war, at eight million, stressing that mental illness is one of the most prevalent health conditions in Yemen.
The UN organization indicated that the war and the collapse of the economy have led to “crippling health facilities and exacerbating mental illnesses affecting all segments of society,” and that “the few available facilities that provide mental health services and psychosocial services; It suffers from an acute shortage of funding, compared to the urgent need for its services.
A medical source in a government hospital under the control of the Houthi militia says that public and private hospitals specializing in psychiatric diseases or even those that have psychiatric clinics; She receives at least 20 cases daily of people with mental disorders in each hospital.
However, the cost of treatment and the lack of specialized medical staff prevents access to adequate and real medical services, and causes treatment to stop and many families to resort to sorcery treatment, or to imprison their relatives whose mental conditions have worsened and are difficult to control, all of which are measures that exacerbate mental illness and multiply disorders. .
The source warns that the media of the Houthi militia deals with diseases and mental disorders lightly, and attributes their causes to things related to myth and political positions, such as the position on the war in Yemen.
It is noteworthy that the Houthi coup caused the cessation of the support that was being received by the mental and mental health sector, as the revenues of the funding agencies for psychiatric hospitals and clinics declined, so they stopped their obligations, while the international agencies cared about food and drug relief, and psychiatry remained at the lowest level of their concerns, as for charitable organizations. The local community working in supporting psychiatry was unable to obtain financing and provide its services. The medical source accuses the Houthi militia of having taken control of all the institutions of the health sector, exerting influence over all revenues and funding sources, seizing donations intended to support this sector, and diverting the donations in favor of affiliated institutions, including those concerned with caring for the families of the dead and wounded.