**1. Introduction**

The increase in the prevalence of non-communicable diseases has been widely reported, and among these is the category of mental disorders. Recent literature has reported that mental disorders have been on the rise exponentially, and account for an estimated 25% of all health-related disability worldwide [1], which highlights the need to prioritize treatment for this group of disorders. Although some health systems in some world regions and countries have acknowledged and have started to respond to this need, others lag behind. Health care systems are generally ideally organized to treat more people at lower levels of care, and decrease the proportion as the level of care increases. This is feasible because the less severity of illness can be easier managed at lower levels of care, where the illness requires less specialization and treatment costs are less because at this level

most illnesses have not yet complicated. This approach has resulted in the globally accepted and promoted approach of placing Primary Health Care (PHC) services to offer optimal health services to the majority of citizens of a country. Primary healthcare (PHC) is thus acknowledged to be the foundation of well-functioning healthcare systems, and is the success indicator of attempts to improve health provision services. In fact, the 1978 Alma Ata declaration confirmed this view, by establishing and promoting PHC as a cornerstone of global health services provision [2]. The significance of the position of PHC services applies despite differences in regional and country wealth, and if well resourced and well run, PHC services can improve the offering of health services for the poor, and so decrease the differences in health outcomes across wealth bands. The South African government envisages the provision of primary health care as a service that should be provided to the whole population, which includes communities of low socioeconomic status. During the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) era, and transcending to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) era, countries that were able to make strides towards achieving their goals, such as Brazil and Thailand, are those that prioritized the improvement of their PHC systems [3]. It is for that reason that PHC should be the focus of service provision for the increasing scourge of mental illness.
