Post-disaster negligence of mental health can cause long term problem: Saima Wazed

Mental health expert Saima Wazed Hossain has stressed on involving persons with mental and intellectual disabilities for planning disaster risk management.

Senior Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 26 July 2016, 04:32 PM
Updated : 27 July 2016, 09:09 AM

She said negligence can cause “lifelong” damage.

“Negligence of mental health in disaster risk management can transform a one day’s disaster into a lifelong burden,” she said, presenting a keynote paper at the WHO regional workshop ended in Dhaka on Tuesday.

The two-day workshop reviewed the existing post-disaster mental health preparedness and psychological support capacity of the WHO’s South-East Asian regional countries.

US-licensed school psychologist Saima is the chairman of the Bangladesh’s National Advisory Committee for Autism & Neurodevelopmental Disorders. She is also a member of WHO’s Expert Advisory Panel on Mental Health.

Daughter of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, she spearheads the mental health campaign in Bangladesh and always advocates for people-centric approach.

Bangladesh last year hosted the Dhaka Conference on Disability and Disaster Risk Management, first global meet after the adoption of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030.

Saima then said the diverse needs of people with different types of disabilities made addressing the issue ‘complex’ during any disaster.

For example, she had said, those who cannot hear a siren need one kind of support while those on a wheelchair need a different type of support during evacuation in any calamity.

Those with neurodevelopment disorders like autism cannot even express their need. “We have to consider all those perspectives and listen to their needs,” she had said.

She also wrote a paper on the issue in a book ‘Crises, Conflict and Disability : Ensuring equality’ which was globally launched last year.

During her keynote speech at the WHO workshop, she also cited the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) that requires that “persons with disabilities benefit from and participate in disaster relief, emergency response and disaster risk reduction strategies.”

“Disaster risk management planning must involve persons with mental and intellectual disabilities,” she said, insisting on developing guidelines on mental well-being and disability.

“Sustainable human development must include addressing mental health concerns,” she said, urging the South East Asian counties to remove barriers to reduce the impacts of disasters on persons with disabilities.

“Act at local to national to global level,” she said.

Health Minister Mohammed Nasim spoke at the closing of the two-day workshop.