CAIRO — During the month of October, hospitals across Egypt affiliated with the General Secretariat of Mental Health, under the Ministry of Health and Population, are participating in Al-Saraya al-Safra, a campaign to raise awareness about mental health services and to counter the stigma surrounding mental illness. The Arabic “al-saraya al-safra” means “yellow palace,” which is a colloquial Egyptian term for a mental institute. The secretariat oversees and controls all services related to mental health in the country.

Khaled Mogahed, spokesman for the Ministry of Health and Population, announced the campaign in a Sept. 24 statement, saying, “Eighteen mental health hospitals will carry out the campaign, which coincides with World Mental Health Day, which falls on Oct. 10 every year.”

There are no official statistics on the number of mentally ill people in Egypt. The latest figures issued by the general secretariat state that 516,000 people were admitted to mental hospitals across the country in 2016, compared to 444,650 in 2015. The figures, however, only reflect the number of people admitted to hospitals affiliated with the secretariat, not the overall number of the mentally ill in the country. Muhammad al-Mahdi, professor and former head of psychiatry at Al-Azhar University, said in a press statement in April 2016 that the extrapolated number of mentally ill people in Egypt ranges between 15 million and 18 million people, if figures for Egypt are in line with percentages from sample populations.

Discussing Al-Saraya al-Safra during a Sept. 24 phone interview on “Raie Aam,” on TeN TV, Hatem Nagy, director general for mental health administration at the general secretariat, said, “The name was chosen to stir the curiosity of people to ask about mental health.” He also remarked, “The campaign aims at raising awareness among citizens about the quality of services that hospitals can offer and the health care possibilities available. It will also introduce people to the symptoms of mental illnesses and preventive methods in addition to challenging the social stigma surrounding mental health issues.”