The impending mental health crisis in Bangladesh

Mental Health Flag. svg

Mental health crisis in the country grows as stigma still rules, doctors remain few, and lack of services leaves lives at risk

Tears have no colour, they say. Yet in Bangladesh, countless tears fall quietly, behind closed doors, where others don’t notices.

A mother wakes before dawn, her chest tight with panic because sleep has once again betrayed her. A factory worker forces his trembling hands through another endless shift. A teenage girl laughs with her siblings while a storm of fear rages inside her.

These are not isolated tales of sadness. They are glimpses into the daily battles of people living with mental illness. Some carry a diagnosis. Many do not. Yet all of them shoulder conditions too often brushed aside - as weakness, as silence, as shame.

They are everywhere. But for each of them, there is almost no hand to hold, no ear to listen, no system ready to help.

The quiet siege of daily life

Numbers alone cannot tell the whole story, but they paint a grim picture.

Between 2022 and 2025, researchers surveyed more than 7,500 women in hospitals across Bangladesh. What they found was staggering: three out of four pregnant and new mothers battled depression or anxiety, and more than half suffered from both at once. For many, what should have been a time of joy turned into ‘nights of exhaustion, despair and haunting thoughts’. (Source: Dhaka Tribune)

Children and teenagers are no less burdened. An education system built on fear and finality too often crushes them. In May 2024, at least eight students died by suicide on the day their SSC exam results were released - proof that, for some, a single ‘piece of paper’ can feel like the end of life itself. (Source: Daily Observer)

Adults carry their own silent weights. Nearly one in five struggles with depression or anxiety. Yet the vast majority never receive treatment - not because they do not want it, but because it is too costly, too far away, or ‘too shameful to seek’.

In a country of more than 170 million people, there are only 260 psychiatrists and 565 psychologists - most based in cities. Rural Bangladesh, where most people live, remains abandoned in the dark.

Why the silence deepens

The last nationwide mental health survey was carried out in 2018. Since then, the country has endured the pandemic, spiralling prices, political turmoils and repeated climate disasters - each a heavy blow to already fragile minds. But no new data tells us how deep the wounds now run.

Even for those who try to seek help, barriers stand tall. Counselling often means long travel, unbearable expense and stigma that can break a person before the illness does.

Women face an added wall of silence, trapped by patriarchy and shame. Speaking about despair can invite ridicule or even abuse. For youth, failure feels final. For the poor, survival leaves no space for healing.

On paper, Bangladesh has taken steps. It has joined the WHO’s Special Initiative for Mental Health. Plans are in motion for a new Directorate of Mental Health, with promises of expanding primary care and telemedicine.

But promises are not practice. Most districts have yet to see any meaningful services. Budgets remain thin, facilities few and public awareness campaigns rare. The gap between ambition and lived reality continues to swallow lives.

What must change

Mental health is not a private weakness - it is a public issue, and ignoring it is a national failure. Experts urge:

1.      Conduct national mental health surveys every 2–3 years.

2.      Bring services closer - community centres, mobile clinics, school and workplace counselling, and promote tele-counselling.

3.      Train and deploy more psychiatrists, psychologists, and counsellors - especially women professionals.

4.      Embed mental health education into schools and workplaces.

5.      Fight stigma through campaigns led by media, faith leaders, and communities.

Each unheard cry is not just an individual tragedy - it is a collective loss.

Bangladesh can choose to remain silent, becoming a country of unheard voices. Or it can choose to act — to open a clinic, to offer a listening ear, to save even one life.

Because if even one life is pulled back from despair, the story changes. And that change begins the moment silence finally breaks. - UNB