BY: COLIN GOMEZ

Malaysia is beginning to witness a growth in the number of cases of people suffering from mental health issues and this became easily evident especially after the Covid 19 Pandemic making mental illness to be a cause of concern.

Mental health experts state that there is no accurate data of the number of people who have mental illness but a conservative estimate by them is that about 10 percent of the population have some form of mental illness at any given time.

Given that there is a 33 million strong population recorded at the last census, it means that there are 3.3 million Malaysians suffering from some form of mental illness and it is set to become the Number 1 illness of the future.

The government has to start creating awareness and education programs to ensure that Malaysians know the signs and symptoms of being mentally ill so as to be able to take corrective action before it festers and gets worse.

In homes, schools, colleges and universities and in the private and public sector, there must be a watch by parents, teachers and lecturers and employers over the monitoring of those under their care and custody who become ill mentally.

There has been a tremendous improvement in the treatment and care of the mentally ill in this New Millennium with the availability of good and effective drugs, therapies, rehabilitation and expert counselling and guidance towards having good mental health.

-THE MALAYSIA VOICE

** The views expressed on this opinion is of the writer and not the publisher