Health Minister Ma. Subramanian launched a helpline for tele-mental health assistance on Thursday. The round-the-clock service, Tele-MANAS, can be accessed by calling 14416.
The initiative, Nattpudan Ungalodu Mananala Sevai, was aimed at providing mental health assistance through a tele-platform round-the-clock. Counselling services, video consultations with psychiatrists and guidance for continuance treatment will be available through the service.
The service is manned by two psychiatrists, four psychologists and 20 counsellors. This has been rolled out at a cost of ₹2.06 crore, the Minister said.
He said all primary health centres, government hospitals and government medical college hospitals will be linked to the service and integrated mental health services will be provided.
He pointed out that recently, “Manam”, mental health support forums, were launched at government medical college hospitals. The services would be offered in coordination with the State government’s schemes of Naan Mudhalvan Thittam and Students in Responsible Police Initiatives.
Mr. Subramanian said the State health helpline 104 was providing counselling services. It had extended counselling services to 1,10,971 students who had appeared for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test in 2021 and 1,45,988 students in 2022. Of these, 564 students who required special focus were identified and provided additional counselling and guidance through the District Mental Health Programme team.
N. Ezhilan, MLA, Shilpa Prabhakar, Mission Director of National Health Mission, Tamil Nadu and S. Uma, Project Director of Tamil Nadu Health System Reform Programme, were present.
