The Hindu : New Delhi News : Mentally sick patients do not get any treatment, say experts

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Oct 12, 2007
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New Delhi

New Delhi

Mentally sick patients do not get any treatment, say experts

Staff Reporter

Also demand that mental health services be set up within the community

NEW DELHI: “There are 5-6 million people who are chronically disabled due to acute mental illness. One lakh people die every year of suicide, many in their productive years. One in four persons will develop a psychiatric disorder in their life. Depression will be the second leading cause of burden of disease in the world by 2020. Eighty per cent of the patients do not get any treatment,” says well known psychiatrist Sameer Parikh.

Launching the Delhi chapter of the Indian Association of Private Psychiatry on Mental Health Day here on Wednesday, Dr. Parikh said: “The reason to initiate this scientific body is to ensure a structured, validated flow of information and provide comprehensive and scientific education to people.”

Senior psychiatrist R. C. Jiloha said there were very few psychiatrists and hospital beds for people with mental illness in this country. “Psychiatric illnesses cause untold suffering to the patient as well as the family and are a huge drain on the economy. The myths about mental illness, lack of awareness, stigma against mentally ill, non-availability of treatment and the apathy of the policy makers are important hurdles in the delivery of treatment to the sufferers,” he added.

Psychiatrist Sandeep Vohra said: “The available mental health services are unevenly distributed and most of our mental hospitals are dilapidated and conceptually obsolete. We suggest more accessibility to mental health services, affordability, adaptability and assessment of performance at the ground level through monitoring. There are few psychiatrists for the huge Indian population. What is worse is the fact that nearly all of these psychiatrists are based in the cities.”

He said that apart from a poor infrastructure, the most glaring inadequacies are in the area of qualified staff. “Some mental hospitals do not have even a single psychiatrist on their permanent roster. During the past two decades, many hospitals have reformed but much more needs to be done,” said Dr. Vohra.

Psychiatrists have also demanded that mental health services be set up within the community and psycho-social rehabilitation be considered a fundamental approach.

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