One of the most serious health related issues among humans is that of mental health and unfortunately this is also the most ignored issue. Given the turbulent three decades here, mental health has emerged as a very serious issue and needs to be taken head-on. Given the non-awareness among the masses and unfounded taboos surrounding psychiatric and mental issues, in most of the cases these issues remain unaddressed thus taking toll on the lives of the people. The society has to understand and appreciate that mental health issues are the like other health issues and there should be no taboos attached to the same. Stigmatization of people having such issues in inhuman and tells about the abyss of ignorance that the society has fallen into. It is responsibility of civil society, influential citizens, teachers, scholars and religious leaders to make people aware about such issues and encourage them to take these issues head-on instead of ignoring them and making their own people suffer. The administration too needs to play its role. Special mental health camps should be organised in length and breadth of the Union Territory where experts should be available to make people aware about the dangers of ignoring mental health. Mental health is paramount to a healthy society and thus should be dealt with utmost priority.
Of late, the concerned authorities have woken upto the challenge and devised some innovative methods to encourage such patients to consult the experts.The call centre under the central government’s Tele MANAS initiative was established at the Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Rainawari here in November last year. This centre has helped the people a lot because now they can consult the experts without exposing themselves and thus having no issues of social stigmatisation. Though, the society at large should understand that there is no stigma attached to such diseases but, as mentioned earlier, lack of awareness is the biggest problem.
The call centre has been receiving calls from thousands of people, majority of them women, to discuss their mental health issues. The digital facility has made it easy for women to talk about their issues from home without being stigmatised. The initiative is appreciable because there is no barrier and no exposure. The callers need not to reveal their identities or to show themselves up. This anonymity helps thousands of people, particularly women, to come forward and seek counselling. The centre functions round the clock and if an issue is not resolved by counsellors, it is referred to the next level, where they are handled by clinical psychologists. If the issue is still not resolved or if some patients need medications and treatment, they are referred to psychiatrists who do the assessment and treatment over phone.
This initiative is a game changer and will go a long way in helping improve peoples’ mental health. However, it still is the responsibility of the civil society and NGOs to ensure that a discourse about mental health is started on societal level wherein people freely speak about the issue. This issue is to be destigmatized so that people don’t suffer further.
