No child psychiatrist in country’s public hospitals

Islamabad: There is not a single child psychiatrist in any public sector hospital in Pakistan to serve child population while according to health experts, one in every four children experiences a significant traumatic event before reaching adulthood and it shows that a huge population is living with trauma that remains unnoticed and that child sex abuse is still underreported as a consequence of the stigma attached to it.

In Pakistan, the child psychiatry is the most neglected field while in the existing circumstances particularly in relation to increasing incidences of child sexual abuses, the country needs child psychiatrists the most to have a healthy generation in future.

Regional Director of College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan (CPSP) at Regional Centre Islamabad Professor Dr. Muhammad Shoaib Shafi expressed this while talking to ‘The News’ on Monday in the backdrop of abduction and murder of Zainab in Kasur.

He said the CPSP is working on the specialty of child psychiatry for the last five years and has been requesting the federal and the provincial governments to introduce specialty of child psychiatry in public sector hospitals operating under their control.

He added the CPSP has already developed curriculum for FCPS Child Psychiatry and approved the degree but the federal and provincial governments did not show any interest in creating child psychiatrists for public service.

It is important that the CPSP is the highest degree awarding institution in Pakistan on post-graduate medical education in around 73 disciplines including child psychiatry. It was established in 1962 under the act of parliament. The CPSP is an autonomous body that covers nearly 95 per cent of the total specialists in medical profession in Pakistan.

Dr. Shoaib said the CPSP wanted the concerned government authorities to introduce child psychiatry as a specialty in Pakistan so that the country has at least one child psychiatrist in every big city in next five years or so. It is astonishing and shocking as well that there is not a single specialist child psychiatrist in public sector hospitals of the country, he said.

It is worth mentioning here that in Pakistan, majority of the psychiatric patients particularly the child patients are taken to traditional faith healers and religious healers who believe that mental illness is caused by supernatural forces such as spirit possession or testing by God. According to health experts, this all is due to acute shortage of mental health professionals and relatively low levels of awareness about mental disorders.

According to WHO’s definition of child maltreatment, sometimes referred to as child abuse and neglect, includes all forms of physical and emotional ill-treatment, sexual abuse, neglect, and exploitation that results in actual or potential harm to the child’s health, development or dignity. Within this broad definition, five subtypes can be distinguished– physical abuse; sexual abuse; neglect and negligent treatment; emotional abuse and exploitation.

Dr. Shoaib said there is a need to create awareness among public on child sex abuse and treatment of children who suffer any traumatic event. But for the purpose, we need child psychiatrists and the concerned government authorities should understand the situation worsening day by day, he said.