Residential mental heath care on the anvil

July 27, 2014 02:39 pm | Updated 02:39 pm IST - Mangalore:

With an underwhelming response to the recently started day-care centre for persons with mental disabilities, the Mental Health Task Force will suggest opening a full-time residential care in the city, said Ashok Pai, chairperson of the Task Force, here on Saturday.

Addressing presspersons, the psychiatrist said daily transportation of a person with mental disabilities was counter-productive to the objective of rehabilitation. Currently, the day care is being run at K.S. Hegde Hospital on the outskirts of the city after a Memorandum of Understanding was signed last month, said health officials.

“The centres will be started in Mangalore, Shimoga, Gulbarga and either Chamarajnagar or Kolar,” said Mr. Pai. When asked if the current MoU will be reworked, he said the modalities will be decided at a meeting of health officials on August 2.

Mangalore was chosen because of the numbers of mental health practitioners, which at 50 private psychiatrists is third highest in the State after Bangalore and Shimoga.

The need for care centres was highlighted by Deputy Commissioner A.B. Ibrahim who said that more than 5,000 people in the district have mental disabilities.

The residential care centre will involve a 60-bed set-up, which will be manned by a psychiatrist, clinical psychologist, psychiatry worker and nurse, said Mr. Pai. “We want to develop this with a public-private partnership. We will pay Rs. 1.9 lakh every month to run such centres,” he said.

With 13 mental health care organisations registered in the district, the Task Force hoped for a good response.

One important proposal of the Task Force was to introduce sex education in classes from high school itself. Commenting on the objections of “morality” when it comes to teaching sex, Mr. Pai said: “Students learn everything from cockroach genitalia to sexual reproduction of amoeba. They learn about every creature except humans…the classes will focus on physiology, anatomy, and in advanced stages sexual urges.”

Social media an addiction

With the Bangalore-based National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) having registered 712 cases of “social media addiction”, Ashok Pai, Chairperson of the Task Force, said it was a “serious disease” that will become a “big problem” in the coming years.

“There is a case of a girl who has been online for 16 years a day…During withdrawal, they can have psycho-somatic problems, just like narcotic addicts have,” he said.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.