Months of battling a worldwide pandemic have shone a spotlight on the importance of mental health and India’s approach towards an often neglected healthcare issue.
To a child battling nervewracking competition, an investment banker hustling for over 100 hours a week, a woman subjected to domestic violence, and a senior citizen dealing with loneliness, mental health is as real as anything that causes the human body to bleed. However, it takes a pandemic to build a conversation around mental health in an Indian household.
For the uninitiated, mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It incorporates a wide range of issues, from clinically diagnosed mental disorders to substance abuse and addiction.
Globally, around 8,00,000 persons die by suicide each year (1 death every 40 seconds), while over 264 million people of all ages suffer from depression. According to the WHO, at least 57 million people in India are depressed – the highest in the world.
Issues
It has been observed that mental health issues are more prevalent in urban areas with specific disorders like schizophrenia and other psychoses, mood disorders, and neurotic or stress-related disorders being nearly three times more prevalent in urban metros. Nearly 50% of persons with major depressive disorders reported difficulties in carrying out their daily activities. It has been estimated that by 2030, the mental health crisis is going to cost India a trillion dollars in lost productivity.
Despite these staggering numbers, there are glaring gaps in the preventive and curative care of these mental disorders. For instance, the mental health workforce amounts to less than 4,000 psychiatrists in the country. Lack of funds is another deterrent. While the total healthcare budget increased by 7% in 2020, there was no corresponding increase in budget for the National Mental Health Programme; the allocated amount is only 0.05% of the total healthcare budget. The actual current spending to implement provisions of the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 is a very small fraction of the conservative estimate of `94,073 crores.
Mental Healthcare Act, 2017
The Act ensures healthcare for people suffering from mental illness through health services funded by the Government. It decriminalises suicide, disallows sterilisation and
Innovative Recommendations
- A national plan for mental health literacy should be envisaged.
- Mental health should be integrated with the National Urban Health Mission and other programmes to deal with the high prevalence of mental health issues in urban areas.
- An incentive-based approach should be utilised to encourage interest in the field of psychiatry and psychology and to solve the shortage of medical professionals in the field.
- While Ayushman Bharat allows for insurance for medical treatment of the mentally unwell, financial protection in the form of allowances should be initiated.
- Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) should be encouraged in the field of mental health .
solitary confinement of mentally unwell patients. The Act provides for the setting up of Central and State Mental Health Authorities for the training of medical professionals. It also mandates insurance companies to provide mental health insurance.
In 2018, the Government also initiated the Ayushman Bharat, a medical insurance scheme for the economically deprived people.
