July 26, 2009 2:15:11 am
One per cent of the population (one crore) suffers from serious mental illness and to make it worse,reach of psychological and psychiatric help is limited as there are barely 3,000-4,000 trained doctors across the 40 institutions in the country.
Keeping this in mind,the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of western region states strongly recommended community-based services in the mental health sector,at the review meeting of mental health held at Yashwantrao Chavan Academy of Development and Administration (YASHADA) on Friday.
Supreme Court judge P C Sharma and member of the National Human Rights Commission,after inaugurating the review meeting,said there is a huge gap in the services for mentally ill.
This was revealed by a survey conducted by the NHRC,in association with the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS),Bangalore, in the 40 mental health institutions.
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A review meeting of various regions is underway,the SC judge said. On Friday,six states made their presentations at the meeting organised by the Maharashtra Institute of Mental Health (MIMH). Dr D Nagaraja,Vice Chancellor of NIMHANS,expressed concern that some of the mental health hospitals had medical superintendents who were not qualified psychiatrists. We need to introduce short training courses to provide quality care services, he said.
Dr Alka Pawar,director of MIMH presented details of the mental health status in Maharashtra.
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