You Are Not Alone

Dr Pratima Murthy is the Director of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore. She has about 30 years of extensive experience in the field of mental health. A leader in addiction psychiatry, she has been recognised for her contribution in improving care for persons with mental illness through her work with the National Human Rights Commission on quality assurance in mental healthcare, both in institutions and in the community. Dr Murthy spoke to Avantika Mehta about the infrastructural gaps in mental healthcare in India and NIMHANS' ongoing efforts to raise awareness about mental illness

- By Avantika Mehta

In spite of India's large burden of mental illness, fewer than one in ten people who need care actually receive it. What are the biggest infrastructural gaps NIMHANS is working to bridge?

The first National Mental Health Survey 2015-16 carried out by NIMHANS found that one in ten persons had a diagnosable mental disorder. But it must be remembered that there are many more who suffer symptoms of mental distress. Globally, the mental health gap differs for different kinds of mental illnesses, as it does in our country. For severe mental disorders like schizophrenia, it is more than 75 per cent, while for substance use disorders it is upwards of 90 per cent. Again, this differs across different states and regions of the country. The Mental Health Programme was launched in our country in the 1970s. It has now expanded to most districts, but to a different extent on the ground. While the number of people seeking help for mental disorders has certainly increased, it is undoubtedly true that this represents only a small percentage. Mental health service delivery needs adequately trained human resources.

While in the last decade, we have been certainly training more psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, psychiatric social workers and psychiatric nurses, for such a large country, the numbers are grossly insufficient. We need to look towards more, better, as well as other solutions.

With roughly 0.3 psychiatrists per 100,000 population, India faces a massive human-resource shortage. What scalable training or task-sharing models have shown the most promise?