The Polish government has announced a new package amounting to 220 million zloty (€48 million) of support for children’s mental health care.
The plan includes improvement of hospital infrastructure, the launch of a round-the-clock helpline, online support and prevention programmes, as well as easier access to specialists.
It comes after the commissioner for children’s rights in November warned the health minister of an urgent need to improve mental health services for children. Experts and doctors have repeatedly warned that the system is underfunded, short-staffed, and relies on outdated methods of treatment
“What were are proposing today it the first step leading to unprecedented improvement of the mental health care system,” said Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, announcing the package. “No other issue is more urgent today than care for the fate of our children and youth.”
Morawiecki noted that, as well as the normal risk factors that can trigger mental health problems, children have also in the last year been particularly hard hit by the pandemic.
“Lockdown, the freezing of the economy, children and young people required to stay at home – it’s all abnormal. We want to get back to normal as soon as possible,” declared the prime minister.
The announced package will cover:
- an overhaul and modernisation of medical infrastructure
- waiving limits for mental health services for the under-18s,
- a round-the-clock helpline and online support available for those experiencing mental problems and their carers
- a preventive programme against internet addiction
The announcement follows criticism last week that senators from the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party had voted against an opposition proposal to boost funding for child psychiatry by 80 million zloty. PiS claimed the opposition were exploiting the issue as part of a “political game”.
Speaking in response to today’s announcement, an opposition senator, Beata Małecka-Libera, told Gazeta Wyborcza that she welcomed the fact that the government was now paying attention to this issue. But she claimed that the 220 million zloty is not “new money”, just moved from elsewhere in the health budget.
At today’s press conference, the health minister, Adam Niedzielski, said that 60 million złoty was coming from the National Health Fund (NFZ), which finances Poland’s public healthcare system, 20 million from a special Covid fund, and the remainder from the general state budget.
A report on the mental health care system for children by Poland’s Supreme Audit Office (NIK), cited by Polsat News, found numerous problems. In five of Poland’s 16 provinces, there was no daily mental health ward for youth at all, which resulted in them being admitted to adult wards.
It also found that the number of suicides among those aged 7 to 16 is increasing year by year, and that 9% of under-18s require some form of mental health support.
Similarly worrying conclusions came from a UNICEF report, published in September, which ranked Poland 31st among 41 developed countries in an index of child wellbeing.
It highlighted that Poland has the lowest percentage of adolescents with a positive image of their own body, and a high youth suicide rate in comparison to other nations.
Main image credit: Vperemen.com/Wikimedia Commons (under CC BY-SA 4.0)
Agnieszka Wądołowska is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She has previously worked for Gazeta.pl and Tokfm.pl and contributed to Gazeta Wyborcza, Wysokie Obcasy, Duży Format, Midrasz and Kultura Liberalna
