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DOCTORATE JUSTIFICATION |
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With the decision of Üsküdar University Senate on Thursday, August 29, 2019, Dr. Alain Gregoire was granted the title of "Honorary Doctorate" for his global activities and scientific studies in the field of maternal and infant mental health. |
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Alain Gregoire |
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Dr. Alain Gregoire is a Senior Perinatal Psychiatrist and Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Southampton, UK. He started his medical specialty training in Obstetrics and Gynecology, but decided to do something about it when he realized that women with mental illness related to pregnancy and childbirth were the least cared for despite being very ill, so he switched to psychiatry. She completed her specialty training in mental health and illness at the Maudsley Hospital and Institute of Psychiatry in London. Dr. Gregoire has been a senior consultant in the UK National Health Service for 25 years, specializing in Maternal and Infant Mental Health. She is currently a member of the NHS England Transformation Board for Perinatal Mental Health. She is a member of the group that wrote the guidance on Antenatal and Postnatal Mental Health produced by the UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. She is the founding President of the UK and Ireland Marcé Society (UKIMS) for perinatal research. She founded and is the director of the Hampshire Specialist Perinatal Mental Health Service and specialist Mother and Baby Mental Health Unit. This center provides comprehensive integrated community and inpatient services for women with serious mental health problems during pregnancy and the postpartum period. For this work, Dr. Gregoire and her team have been awarded Physician of the Year and Mental Health Team of the Year in 2004 and 2013. She is the founder and Chair of the UK Maternal Mental Health Alliance, which currently includes more than 90 national organizations (Maternal Mental Health Alliance). The UK Maternal Mental Health Alliance is made up of organizations from across the UK that have come together to ensure that all women in the UK receive accessible, continuous and quality treatment and support during pregnancy and for one year postpartum. Dr. Gregoire has been a key figure in building this solidarity. The campaign launched by this alliance with the slogan "Everyone's Business" aimed to make the public recognize that the problem of women with mental problems in the perinatal period is a problem that concerns the whole country. With this campaign, the importance of the need for specialized maternal mental health centers was revealed, and the loss of 8.1 billion pounds due to the lack of access to mental health services for mothers in the UK was brought to the agenda with detailed economic analysis. As a result of this campaign, in 2016, the UK National Health Service announced a £365 million investment to ensure that more women and families across the country have access to specialized essential perinatal services. Through this investment, the NHS in England has established specialized centres where maternal mental health services are not available, enabling women to access this vital service in their local area. The progress of the services can be tracked on the map at https://maternalmentalhealthalliance.org. Dr. Gregoire remains committed to ensuring that all women, both nationally and internationally, receive mental health care during pregnancy and postpartum, at least as much as they receive physical health care. In September 2016, during the Marcé Society International Scientific Congress in Melbourne, she spearheaded the establishment of the Global Alliance for Maternal Mental Health. The Global Alliance for Maternal Mental Health is a coalition of 17 international organizations that aims to improve the mental health and well-being of women and babies during pregnancy and the first year after birth. The number of international organizations participating in this coalition is constantly growing. Under the leadership of Dr. Gregoire, the alliance aims to replicate the work done in the UK at an international level to have a global impact so that mothers and their children do not experience avoidable suffering. |
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