Limited facilities fuel mental-health crisis

Bangladesh continues to face a severe shortage of mental-health professionals and treatment facilities, leaving the vast majority of people with mental-health conditions without adequate professional care.

On July 13, 2026, Health and Family Welfare Minister Sardar Md Sakhawat Hossain told Parliament that Bangladesh had only 1.17 mental-health professionals per 100,000 people and around 350 registered psychiatrists in the public sector.

The shortage of professionals and limited access to treatment have contributed to a persistent mental-health treatment gap across the country.

The problem is also evident among university students. A 2024 study by the Aachol Foundation found that 79.9 per cent of participating undergraduate students reported experiencing depression.

Asked whether mental-health services were available on their campuses, 38.3 per cent said “yes”, 35.5 per cent said “no”, while 26.2 per cent said they did not know.

World Mental Health Day 2026 will be observed today (October 10) under the theme, “Lived Experiences Heard: Real Voices, Real Change.”

The National Mental Health Survey, conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in 2018-19, found that 18.7 per cent of adults and 12.6 per cent of children aged between seven and 17 had mental-health problems.

The survey also found that 91 per cent of adults and 93 per cent of children with mental-health conditions remained outside the treatment system.
The scale of the treatment gap has also been reflected in subsequent research.

For several major mental-health conditions, the treatment gap exceeded 90 per cent, including addictive, depressive, personality, anxiety, somatic-symptom and neurocognitive disorders.

The gap was highest for addictive disorders at 95.24 per cent, while it stood at 65.63 per cent for bipolar disorder.

Professor Kamal Uddin Ahmed Chowdhury of the Department of Clinical Psychology at the University of Dhaka told the media that around 90 per cent of mental-health services were concentrated in Dhaka, leaving people in other parts of the country with very limited access to specialised care.

Prof Muzaherul Huq, former adviser for the South-East Asia Region at the World Health Organization (WHO), told The New Nation, “We need to establish a comprehensive and reliable mental-health statistics system.”

He said data should be collected at the upazila level so that primary mental-health care could be provided through doctors and nurses at local health facilities.

Patients requiring higher levels of treatment could then be referred from upazila health complexes to district hospitals.

He also stressed the need for regular follow-up services at the upazila level to ensure continuity of treatment and prevent patients from dropping out of care.

A study published in BMC Psychiatry also found that around 90 per cent of people with mental-health conditions in Bangladesh did not seek mental-health services, partly because of the limited availability of treatment.

The study was based on data from the 2019 National Mental Health Survey, which covered 7,270 households.

A WHO report published on May 29, 2025, titled Prevention and Management of Mental Health Conditions in Bangladesh: An Investment Case, identified the treatment gap as one of the country’s major mental-health challenges.

The report examined shortages in mental-health facilities as well as the economic and social costs of inadequate treatment, and called for greater investment in mental-health services.

WHO’s Bangladesh mental-health programme has also highlighted the limitations of relying primarily on specialist services.

The Bangladesh version of the Mental Health Gap Action Programme, published in 2022, cited findings from the National Mental Health Survey showing that 92.3 per cent of adults and 94.5 per cent of children with psychiatric disorders did not access mental-health services.

It also noted that Bangladesh had fewer than one psychiatrist for every 700,000 people.

Bangladesh has two specialised government mental hospitals, alongside a limited network of psychiatric units in general hospitals and medical colleges, as well as private mental-health facilities.

NIMH data cited in a report published by a national news outlet on March 24, 2026, showed that Bangladesh had only 0.50 mental-health professionals per 100,000 people.

According to the data, the country had around 350 psychiatrists, 565 psychologists, seven psychiatric social workers, 324 occupational therapists and 172 speech therapists.

It also had 21,267 general physicians, 9,400 health workers and 28,165 nurses who had received mental-health training, along with around 700 nurses working in specialised mental-health facilities.

NIMH Administrative Officer Kamruzzaman Mukul told the media that the institute had fewer than 400 staff members despite a proposal for 879 positions.

He said the institute admits around 15 to 25 patients a day. Although 400 beds have been approved, only 360 are currently usable because of staff shortages, in addition to 18 observation beds.

When contacted, mental-health expert Prof Dr Helal Uddin Ahmed, Professor of Child, Adolescent, and Family Psychiatry at the National Institute of Mental Health and Hospital Psychiatry at the National Institute of Mental Health and Hospital, told The New Nation that around 92 per cent of people with mental-health conditions in Bangladesh do not receive treatment.

“For every 100 people living with mental-health conditions, only eight receive treatment, while the remaining 92 go untreated. This inequality is known as the treatment gap,” he said.

“Mental-health disorders are often invisible and remain largely unseen, while access to treatment facilities is limited, particularly outside government mental-health institutions.

Social stigma is also one of the major reasons behind the treatment gap,” he added.

He said the shortage of psychiatrists and other trained mental-health professionals was another major factor. “This shortage cannot be overcome overnight.

We can introduce short-term training programmes for physicians, nurses and health workers so they can provide basic mental-health services at the primary-care level.

This would reduce the need for patients from different districts to travel to Dhaka for treatment,” he said. Such programmes have already been introduced, he said, adding that expanding them could improve access to mental-health care outside major urban centres.

“We can also increase public-awareness campaigns to help reduce the treatment gap,” he added.