Challenges to Providing Quality Mental Health Services for Forcibly Displaced Populations: The Case of Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh

The Rohingya refugee camps at Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh provide a unique opportunity to understand the provision of mental health services to a large, forcibly displaced population with limited resources. Providing quality mental health services to the Rohingya has been a challenge from the very beginning on their migration from Myanmar to Bangladesh in 2017. Currently, many of the quality concerns remain unchanged and are becoming more prominent as mental health needs are increasing and changing in nature. Based on direct observation, we present the current challenges with treating the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, and propose a few possible solutions. Concerns include the lack of clinical skills, ethical competencies, linguistic and cultural competencies, clinical supervision, and self-care among the providers. To address these challenges, we suggest increasing access to resources for building linguistic and cultural competency, utilizing the technology platform for training, supervision and service delivery, providing training on evidence-based intervention models and ethical practice, introducing the peer supervision system, and increasing collaboration and coordination among the organizations. What is the public significance of this article? Refugees are prone to develop mental health conditions. This article discusses challenges associated with the delivery of mental health services to the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. We believe that our recommendations can be applied to other contexts involving displaced Asian populations.