India's lack of apathy towards mental health

The country needs now more than ever to ramp up its focus towards this burning issue

- DR HARISH SHETTY

In 2017, President Ram Nath Kovind said that India was facing a possible mental health epidemic and stressed the need to provide access to treatment facilities to those suffering from mental disorders by 2022. What made things even more alarming was a report by the Ministry of Health and ICMR in December 2019 that stated that 1/7 Indians were mentally ill.

That means that a staggering 20 crore Indians are battling mental health issues.

Status of Mental Health facilities

There are approximately 9000 Psychiatrists and not enough Psychologists, Medical Social Workers, Counselors and others. There has been a lot of enthusiasm to build IIMs, IITs, AIIMS across India with the belief that the country needs more management graduates, engineers and medical facilities. Building a trillion-dollar economy is important, but in an era of massive angst due to globalisation and rapid social change, we need more graduates in mental health. Somewhere the stigma and poor awareness is not only among the ordinary Indian but also among policymakers and politicians ruling the country.