The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Telemedicine is the best medium for the mental ill to seek help

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, May 25, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Telemedicine is the best medium for the mental ill to seek help

Ramya Kannan

A project launched by Schizophrenia Research Foundation comes in handy for rural people

REACHING OUT: A psychiatrist in SCARF, Chennai, counsels a family member of a patient at Nagapattinam through the tele-network. -— Photo: K. Pichumani

CHENNAI: Maruthappan (name changed) does not understand technology, but he feels it.

When he wants to talk to his psychiatrist, he picks up a phone and gazes into a computer monitor. That is probably the only way a man like him in a village at Tharangambadi in Nagapattinam district is ever going to access care for mental illness. For the moment, in areas of the State starved of adequate mental health professionals, telemedicine seems the best way of accessing care.

Probably for the first time in Tamil Nadu, telemedicine connectivity has come to the aid of persons with mental illness. And the beneficiaries have the tsunami to thank for this.

A project of the Schizophrenia Research Foundation (SCARF) and funded by Deutsche Bank, the telemedicine facility was started in the tsunami-hit areas to cater for people whose lives went awry after the killer waves hit the coast. Large numbers of people were affected, and telemedicine seemed the best way of "meeting" patients and following up without involving huge infrastructure costs.

While the project was conceived immediately after the tsunami, the first centre was opened in Dharmakulam, Karaikal, in June 2005, says Sujit John, co-ordinator of the programme. A unit is being set up at Thiruporur, and two more are coming up at Cuddalore and Nagapattinam. While at first the patients, who came from rural areas, were uncomfortable using a computer or a phone to communicate with the doctor, they have got into the groove and use equipment to get their prescriptions, says K.Soundari, SCARF psychiatrist.

It helps that the SCARF has tied up with local NGOs to implement the project. Social workers of SCARF like Koteeswara Rao train the staff of the NGOs in identifying symptoms during field visits and bringing patients to the centre, where an ISDN connection has been set up. Further, the organisation has started providing medicines free of cost to the various centres.

Though initially the primary target groups were those affected by the tsunami, soon large numbers of people with mental illness unconnected with the tsunami started reporting. "We found that people had little or no access to mental healthcare. Accessing psychiatric counselling means travelling long distances and giving up a day's labour, so people with chronic mental illness get no support whatsoever," says R. Mangala, SCARF psychiatrist, who works on the telemedicine project. Soon this group overtook the tsunami-affected, and the big gap in accessing medicare, particularly psychiatric care, became obvious.

Mobile units

Which is why the SCARF has adopted the telemedicine project as part of its community building initiative. In the long run, Mr.John explains, a mobile unit, using V-SAT technology, will ensure better coverage of remote and neglected areas. On the occasion of the World Schizophrenia Day on Wednesday, psychiatrists say, it is pertinent to discuss the benefits of telemedicine in enhancing medicare access for persons with mental illness.

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