Free Mental Health Help Is Available in Tunis Right Now — Here's Where to Find It

Tunis has more free mental health services than most of its residents realise. The problem is finding them. Buried between Ministry of Health circulars and word-of-mouth referrals from general practitioners, a patchwork of public clinics, NGO-run counselling centres and community programmes quietly handles thousands of consultations each year — often without charging a single dinar.

The timing matters. Global anxiety and burnout indices have been rising steadily since 2022, and the Arab region is not exempt. A 2024 survey by the Tunisian National Institute of Public Health found that roughly 23 percent of adults in Greater Tunis reported moderate-to-severe psychological distress in the previous month — a figure that climbed from 17 percent in pre-pandemic tracking. Summer, with its particular mix of financial pressure, family tension and heat, tends to sharpen the edges of that distress. July and August historically see spikes in walk-in demand at Razi Hospital, the country's main psychiatric facility, located on Route de la Manouba west of the city centre.

Where to Go, and What to Expect

Razi Hospital remains the anchor institution. Its outpatient psychiatric unit operates six days a week and accepts patients without an appointment for initial triage. Consultations with a psychiatrist are covered under the CNAM public health insurance scheme, and for those without coverage, a flat consultation fee of 3 dinars applies under the tarif social classification — unchanged since its last revision in 2022. The hospital sits about 12 kilometres from the city centre, accessible by ligne 4 of the Tunis light rail network.

Closer to the capital's core, the Association Tunisienne de Soutien Psychologique (ATSP) runs a walk-in counselling service out of a second-floor office on Rue de Hollande in the Lafayette neighbourhood, roughly 400 metres from Avenue Habib Bourguiba. The association employs six licensed psychologists and has operated on a sliding-scale, largely free-of-charge model since 2018. Sessions run 45 minutes. No referral letter is required. First appointments are typically available within five to seven working days, though the organisation opened a limited same-week emergency slot system in January 2026 for acute stress cases.

In the Medina itself, the NGO Santé Pour Tous maintains a community health point near Bab Souika that includes psychological first-aid services two afternoons a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The programme is aimed specifically at residents of the densely populated northern Medina quarters and is staffed by trained counsellors under clinical supervision. It costs nothing. The centre also distributes printed Arabic-language guides on stress and sleep — practical, low-tech resources that travel well in a neighbourhood where smartphone penetration remains uneven.

Digital Access and What to Do in a Crisis

For those who prefer a first contact that does not require walking into a clinic, the Ministry of Social Affairs has maintained a telephone helpline — 1899 — since 2020. The line operates from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily and connects callers to trained social workers who can assess need and route people to the appropriate local service. Call volume has grown steadily; the Ministry reported handling over 14,000 calls in 2025, up from 9,400 in 2023.

Anyone in acute psychological crisis — severe panic, thoughts of self-harm, dissociative episodes — should go directly to the emergency unit at Charles Nicolle Hospital on Boulevard du 9 Avril 1938 in central Tunis. Psychiatric emergency cover runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Staff there can stabilise, assess and refer within the same visit.

The practical step most mental health professionals in the city recommend is the same one most people skip: tell your general practitioner first. A GP at any of the regional health centres — there are eleven operating across the greater Tunis governorate — can write a formal referral, which both speeds access at Razi and triggers CNAM reimbursement. That single piece of paper can mean the difference between a three-week wait and a next-day appointment. It takes about ten minutes to get one. As with most things in healthcare, knowing the system is half the treatment.