Pakistan declares mental health a national emergency — and writes a 10-year plan to fix it

About 32.4 million Pakistanis need mental health care, and only around 5% can get it — a treatment gap of roughly 95%, with just 0.19 psychiatrists per 100,000 people. At the Global Mental Health Summit in Islamabad on October 1–2, attended by 800 participants in person and online, the government launched the National Mental Health Policy 2026–2035, developed with WHO, UNICEF and the Global Institute of Human Development. The plan pushes care into primary health clinics, schools and communities, with children and young people at the centre, and the Islamabad Declaration for Global Mental Health was adopted alongside it. Federal Health Minister Syed Mustafa Kamal called it plainly: mental health is an emergency in Pakistan. For 32 million people, this is the first comprehensive national answer.