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On Nov 20, 2022, we celebrate World Children s Day and the theme this year is inclusion,
for every child. However, children with disabilities have received little attention
from global health and development stakeholders.
In 2013, the UK National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD)
published Measuring the Units.1 This report on UK hospital deaths from alcohol-related
liver disease in 2011 highlighted the avoidable nature of many of these deaths and
found that care was less than good in more than half of the cases reviewed; basic
omissions in patient care and missed opportunities were common, including the identification
of patients with decompensated liver disease and initiation of simple urgent investigation
and treatment.
It is a terrible indictment on us as humans that we stigmatise and discriminate against
individuals or groups because of their perceived difference or “otherness”. We welcome
this new Lancet Commission1 and its aim to end stigma and discrimination in mental
health, rather than merely reduce it. The Commission comes at a time when mental health
movements are gaining momentum globally, and the UN and its agencies are advocating
greater recognition of mental health and transformed mental health services.
We welcome the Lancet Commission on ending stigma and discrimination in mental health
by Graham Thornicroft, Charlene Sunkel, and colleagues.1 Ending stigma and discrimination
in mental health is an ambitious request, but the Commission s six goals for stigma
reduction and eight recommendations for action by global organisations, governments,
employers, the health-care and social-care sectors, the media, people with lived experience,
local communities, and civil society provide a blueprint for the way forwards “to
act now to stop stigma and start inclusion”.