Mental healthcare should be inclusive: WHO official

Mental healthcare should be inclusive and government should formulate policies sensitive to psychological well-being of its targeted groups for optimum implementation of its schemes, a top official of the WHO here today said.
"Government should formulate policies sensitive to mental health of its targeted groups for the optimum implementation of the schemes and benefits for each and every beneficiary," Director, Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, World Health Organisation in Geneva, Shekhar Saxena said.
Speaking at a Symposium on 'Mental Health: Gender, Youth & Social Justice' here, Saxena, an alumnus of the AIIMS, also emphasised that mental healthcare should be inclusive and provided within the community and not in mental hospitals.

"Mental health services in India are lacking and we need to include it into primary care. Every doctor and nurse needs to have an orientation in dealing with the mental health of their patients," he said.
He also stressed on the need of empowering NGOs, civil society and those mental ill to seek help and demand their requirements of being treated or counselled.
The gap between those suffering from serious psychological illness and those getting treatment is as wide as 80 per cent which means eight out of ten people is not getting the medical and psychological help needed. In case of mental illness in which the symptoms are less visible, the gap is even wider he said.

Pratap Sharan, professor at the Department of Psychiatry in AIIMS said, mental health services are "poorly resourced" with one per cent of the health budget being allocated for it.

"Also, the number of mental health professionals in India are inadequate. There are 4,000-50,00 mental health professionals with the doctor-patient ratio being one doctor for 3 lakh mentally ill.
"About 10 per cent of India's population suffers from some degree mental illness, yet of them only 10 per cent of them get help," Sharan said.
Apart from that experts also said that four out of five people in India die 15-20 years earlier because their mental illness hampers detection of their actual physical ailment, as compared to their mentally-healthy counterparts.

Further, the subject of mental health is shrouded with stigma, misunderstanding and discrimination, Saxena said.
The symposium focused on child rights, gaps and inequalities in provision of mental health care to women, and transgender rights among several other important issues pertaining to providing dignified mental health services to children and women.
The event was a joint initiative of AIIMS, Columbia University and WHO and was inaugurated by Justice K G Balakrishnan, Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission in India.