Below are extracts from a commentary by WHO DHG Dr Tedros and the President of Sri Lanka. Full text: https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/the-case-for-shifting-...
The case for shifting mental health care from institutions to communities
12 October 2026
This commentary was first published by TIME on 12 October 2026, https://time.com/article/2026/10/12/the-case-for-shifting-mental-health-...
... Around the world, very large numbers of people with mental health conditions live behind closed doors in psychiatric hospitals and social care institutions. Some have been there for months; others for decades. According to the World Health Organization’s Mental Health Atlas, about half were brought in against their will, stripped of basic daily choices like what to wear or when to eat, and cut off from the outside world...
Nearly half of all public mental health funding is spent on maintaining these large facilities, while access to community-based mental health care, including in general hospitals, for millions of people remains underfunded and overlooked...
Deinstitutionalization is not simply about reducing hospital beds. It is about creating the conditions for people to live independently and participate fully in society, with access to appropriate housing, education, employment, social protection, and person-centered mental and physical health care. This is the foundation of recovery, inclusion and human rights-based mental health care...
To support this transition, the World Health Organization has released new, practical guidance to help health leaders navigate each step. Every country begins from a different position, with different resources, laws, service systems and community networks. Implementers need to identify feasible, high-impact actions that are appropriate to their own context.
We must ensure that people receive the support they need in environments that promote dignity, autonomy, relationships and inclusion. We call on governments, health and social care systems to make this a priority, with people with lived experience as partners throughout the transition.
The guidance is freely available here: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240124134
Here is an overview of the guidance:
This practical guide supports psychiatric hospital leaders and decision-makers to advance deinstitutionalization (DI) for adults who have experienced long stays in psychiatric hospitals. It responds to the continuing dominance of institutional care, which can absorb substantial mental health resources while separating people from communities, limiting their autonomy and exposing them to risks of human rights violations.
Best wishes, Neil
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org