Position paper
Committee: World Health Organization
Country Iraq
Topic: Mental Health and Awareness
Iraq, as some historians say, is the birth place of history itself and its home to one of the worlds oldest civilizations. From Ancient Mesopotamia to the recent American invasion, Iraq’s history is truly a mix of great culture, ancient civilization and and also constant conflict between ethnicities and invasion from British and most recently by America.
In 2003 US-UK coalition forces invaded Iraq after overthrowing the then president of Iraq Saddam Hussain. It marked a turning point in the history of Iraq. The country has witnessed a constant cycle of violence and bloodshed in the past decade and half. According to some estimates, this has lead to killing of over a half million people and displaced over a million people. The war has torn apart hundreds of thousands of families.
WHO was established on 7th April 1948 which we celebrate as world health day. WHO works side by side with various governments of the member nations and also with many non-governmental organizations to combat various diseases including mental health issues of the people amongst the nations.
Per WHO, Mental illness has shattered the lives of 450 million people and drug use disorders have affected almost 15.3 million people in the world. Mental illness can be absurdly fatal; these are some of the problems: People with severe mental illness have a high chance of premature death, they are expected to have a life expectancy by an average of 10 to 25 years. Poor mental health makes hard for patients to seek out and benefit from treatments for co-morbidities such as heart problems, chronic respiratory issues, and short term illness. A large intake of drugs can make it easier for transmittable diseases from unclean needle usage.
The diseases include Staph, HIV, and Tetanus.
Since Iraq has been facing with devastating wars, terrorism, political instability, and social upheaval it is not a surprise that mental instability is common. There have been many reports that children at the age of 5 and above are also getting affected by this mental illness. According to a study conducted by WHO amongst 10,000 primary schools in Baghdad, a vast number of children are suffering from trauma-related symptoms. This lead to elevation of mental health disorders in children. This is even resulting suicidal tendencies amongst many women and children. The reasons for this is mainly because of how wars and terrorism have affected the people of Iraq, drug intakes, and the lack of psychiatrists and prescribers in war torn nation of Iraq.
Iraq depends on the WHO to solve these problems, however to put all of its focus onto one country would not be a very wise solution, so instead the UN should start sending groups of doctors and psychiatrists to war torn Iraq. In addition to that they should start doing drug busts, in this way mental illness can get treated and the intake of drugs will be stopped. There is a significant shortage of medical doctors and psychiatrists in Iraq. With this being said Iraq should work side by side with WHO to solve these problems especially since the situation in Iraq is slowing and steadily becoming stable.
Community beliefs, attitudes, culture and religious beliefs play a pivotal role in deciding many aspects of mental health care. People with mental health issues are part of of social fabric. If the community around the people with mental health issues are favorable and empathetic, it contributes to speedy recovery and reintegration; if negative, it leads to reinforcement of stigma and discrimination. Efforts to enhance the involvement of local communities, NGOS and volunteers in collaboration with traditional healers will significantly contribute towards recovery and betterment of people with mental health issues.
This paper was written by Vasisht Boreddy of Sancta Maria International School.