Healing minds

In Chhattisgarh's Durg district, health workers are offering support to those silently struggling with mental health conditions

- BHAGIRATH

DURG, 2021: while most households in Subhash Nagar locality of this Chhattisgarh city were preparing for Diwali, the mood was grim in 41-year-old Varun Sharma's (name changed) house. Sharma, an insurance investigator, had become depressed and lashed out physically on his wife and 10-year-old daughter. He was harbouring more dangerous thoughts—of fatally harming his family and himself.

These thoughts prompted him to call the Durg district hospital for help. A team visited and, after observing him, deduced he may have Major Depressive Disorder, which has symptoms like persistent sadness, insomnia, fatigue, irritability and suicidal thoughts. They took him to the hospital and a clinical psychologist counselled him. Extensive treatment began six months later, under Durg's Samvedana programme. Now, Sharma tells Down To Earth (DTE), he believes he is fully stable.

Sharma is one of over 10,000 patients of mental health disorders treated under Samvedana, an initiative started in July 2022 by then district collector Pushpendra Kumar Meena. As part of the programme, health workers, including doctors and staff of primary and community health centres (PHCS and CHCS), Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAS) and mitanins (Chhattisgarh's women community health workers), conduct door-to-door surveys of 0.3 million households across villages, identify people with mental health concerns and facilitate treatment. The initiative includes awareness campaigns at old-age and juvenile homes and prisons, mental health camps at CHCS, workplace stress management, suicide prevention and life-skills training and dialogues with religious leaders.