International Migrants Day – Mental health care for all, at all times
Every day, millions of people are displaced globally, seeking asylum, protection, peace. Sometimes they leave by choice, sometimes out of necessity.
Internation Migrants Day is a day established to highlight the hardships migrants and refugees experience, which cause distress, anxiety, sadness, fatigue, anger, trauma, etc. Symptoms of depression, PTSD and suicidal behaviours are more likely to affect refugees and migrants, as they’re facing a complicated migration journey, filled with racism, exclusion, social isolation and hard living conditions.
“Patients with a migration background have very, very many risk factors and, in their history, often various traumatizing events they had to endure, resulting in their mental health being significantly worse compared to that of the native population. At the same time, in almost all European countries, they are confronted with numerous barriers to accessing the healthcare system.” says Prof. Meryam Schouler-Ocak, Professor at the Department of Psychiatry and Psychoterapy (CCM) Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Psychiatric University Clinic of Charité at St. Hedwig Hospital, Berlin, Germany.
It is essential to provide an easier access to mental health services for migrants and refugees who need it. Everyone, regardless of their situation or legal status, should be able to get care and treatment if they wish to receive it.
Our Committee on Ethics and Task Force on Migration and Mental Health wrote a Policy Paper on the ethical dilemmas and concerns related to the mental health of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.
“In this context, ethical principles are often not respected. Core principles of medical ethics – beneficence, respect for autonomy, non-maleficence, and justice – as well as the obligation to advance psychiatric standards and apply psychiatric expertise for societal benefit, are inconsistently upheld. In our policy paper on migration and the mental health of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers – ethical dilemmas and concerns – we, a group of experts, address precisely this topic.”
