Pakistan, April 27 -- The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa health department's decision to place 32 psychologists in district headquarters hospitals marks a structural shift that should have come decades earlier, because a province shaped by conflict, floods and displacement now carries some of the highest rates of depression and trauma in the country. In several districts, between 25 and 34 per cent of people live with a mental health condition, most of them undiagnosed, and the new mental health desks are designed to screen patients and connect them to community workers and tertiary facilities. It is a necessary intervention, and a belated one.

The scale of the crisis is no longer arguable, with nearly four in ten Pakistanis estimated to face some f...