After the World Health Organization (we will shorten it to WHO from now on) recently released another ICD-11 draft where „gaming disorder” is planned to be a mental disease, plans of a new National Health Service (shortened to NHS from this point) clinic surfaced. It would be the first publicly-funded clinic to treat such a thing in the world!

This clinic would be run by the North West and Central London NHS foundation trust (and it’d be funded by the NHS, research grants, and philanthropic sources), and initially, it’d treat gaming disorders. Later, it would also cover other Internet-based addictions. Research and treatment would both be in its focus, and families would receive advice as well. At the moment, there’s enough funding for a weekly therapy group for gaming addicts.

„Gaming disorder is finally getting the attention it deserves. The distress and harm it can cause are extreme, and I feel a moral duty on behalf of the NHS to provide the evidence-based treatment of these young people and their families need. The ones who do struggle, the Centre for Internet Disorders will be a life-changer,” psychiatrist and clinic founder Henrietta Bowden-Jones said.

The WHO is getting responses from the healthcare side, too…

Source: The Guardian