Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2019-07-02

Strengthening of the mental health services

- The impact of the population structure and the diseases of the country is in a changing process and in order to face such situations the health care delivery system has to be restructured. It has been identified that, at present, around 10% of the total population in the country suffer from any sort of mental illness and only a 40% out of them resort to treatment and it has been assumed that the problems related to mental illness will tend to increase in the future. Considering these facts, the attention of the Government has been drawn to promote mental health services with a view to generating a healthy population. Accordingly, the proposal made by the Minister of Health, Nutrition & Indigenous Medicine to construct the new Psychiatric Treatment Unit Complex at the Teaching Hospital in Kandy with an investment of Rs.503 million and the Psychiatric Treatment Unit at the District Base Hospital in Chillaw with an investment of Rs.213.8 million, was approved by the Cabinet.