#MHForAll Webinar: COVID-19 and the impact of a global pandemic on mental health

Key messages:

• Mental health services have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. They were often the last to be provided with PPE, despite potentially being at greater risk than many other areas, while tackling the needs of the virus and supporting the ICUs have been at the top of the agenda.
• Forced changes in service delivery have exacerbated the digital divide. While there was more progress in digital mental health service provision in the first 10 weeks of the pandemic than in the last decade, reduced decisional timeframes have meant less time for considering the implications of these digital developments and resulting inequality.
• The impact of COVID-19 on mental health will outlive the pandemic itself. We must look ahead and prepare for a chronic and ever-increasing mental health burden as a result of the pandemic. There will be an increased number of survivors, perhaps with PTSD, more people with long COVID, where the symptoms are often neurological, and a huge number of people who are in mourning.
• Attitudes towards mental health have changed, but we must invest in services. COVID-19 has contributed to a normalisation of mental health challenges and conversations around them. But there is a serious risk of neglecting serious, long-term mental health illness.
• Mental health must be fully included and funded in pandemic response plans. Last year the World Health Organization carried out important research which showed that while most countries did have a MHPPS response plan, the majority had not fully funded this.

It is clear that the world is facing a mental health emergency as a result of COVID-19. It is also clear that we can only fully recover from the virus and if we build back better and ensure good quality, rights-based mental health care for all.