{"id":16096,"date":"2015-06-07T06:12:41","date_gmt":"2015-06-07T06:12:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gncdubai.com\/?p=16096"},"modified":"2015-06-07T06:12:41","modified_gmt":"2015-06-07T06:12:41","slug":"uae-needs-more-psychiatrists-the-national-feat-gnc-dubai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gncdubai.com\/ar\/uae-needs-more-psychiatrists-the-national-feat-gnc-dubai\/","title":{"rendered":"UAE needs more Psychiatrists – The National feat. GNC Dubai"},"content":{"rendered":"
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ABU DHABI \/\/ The National \/ Jennifer Bell \/ June 6, 2015 \/\/ There is only a handful of beds available for patients with psychiatric illnesses in the UAE.<\/p>\n

The World Health Organisation report found the Emirates has the among the lowest ratio of psychiatric beds per head in the world, with one bed for every 100,000 people. There are significantly higher rates elsewhere such as 34 per 100,000 in the UK, 50 in the United States and 343 in Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a need for family-centred specialist inpatient mental health facilities for children and their families who are suffering from severe and complex problems which cannot be adequately treated by outpatient based services,\u201d said Dr Fareeha Amber Sadiq, child and adolescent psychiatrist at Camali Clinic, Dubai. Mental health issues are less well recognised and not treated as readily as physical health issues here, said Dr Sadiq. \u201cWe need equality in how we think about mental health and physical health care,\u201d she said. \u201cWe need to close the gap in how we think about these aspects of healthcare and raise the hopes we have for people who are affected by mental health conditions.\u201d Despite what people think, mental health problems are common, she said. \u201cPeople suffering from mental issues are also some of the most vulnerable in our communities. However, there are insufficient quality services available and this does not make sense.\u201d[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/1″][vc_single_image image=”16097″ alignment=”center” border_color=”grey” img_link_large=”yes” img_link_target=”_blank” img_size=”full”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/1″ top_margin=”none” css=”.vc_custom_1433657515710{margin-top: 20px !important;}”][vc_column_text]Jared Alden, a psychotherapist at the German Neuroscience Centre<\/strong> in Dubai, said the lack of beds could be attributed to a healthcare system struggling to catch up with a booming population, which has risen from about 100,000 in the 1960s to more than nine million today.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis can explain why we have the number of psychiatric beds that we do,\u201d said Mr Alden.<\/p>\n

The 2015 World Statistics Report \u2013 the WHO\u2019s annual compilation of data for 194 countries \u2013 found a handful such as Cambodia, Central African Republic, and Guinea have fewer beds than the UAE.<\/p>\n

Mr Alden said when the UAE was founded the small population did not have the need for the mental health services that exist today.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs more expatriates have arrived we have brought our own health issues with us,\u201d he said. \u201cThis has been complicated by the fact that not only has our population risen but it has almost doubled in the last six years.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a result, we need to not only build our roads but expand our health system as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the tides are turning, traditionally those needing specialist medical treatment \u2013 such as for a mental health issue \u2013 many would opt to travel oversees for treatment, thus reducing the supply and demand need in their home country, said Mr Alden.<\/p>\n

The importance of mental health is underestimated.<\/h2>\n

\u201cWe really have to stop separating our mental health from our physical health,\u201d he said. \u201cThe distinction is artificial.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mental health has been identified as among the top five crucial health issues \u2013 along with obesity, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and cancer \u2013 that need to be addressed in this country.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/1″][vc_column_text] ABU DHABI \/\/ The National \/ Jennifer Bell \/ June 6, 2015 \/\/ There is only a handful of beds available for patients with psychiatric illnesses in the UAE. The World Health Organisation report found the Emirates has the among the lowest ratio of psychiatric beds per head in the world, with one<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16098,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gncdubai.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gncdubai.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gncdubai.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gncdubai.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gncdubai.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gncdubai.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gncdubai.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gncdubai.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gncdubai.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gncdubai.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}