Aiming to provide care to persons suffering from psychological problems, the government is setting up day-care centres at the district government hospitals of the State under Manasadhara scheme, noted psychiatrist and Chairman, Karnataka State Mental Health Task Force, Ashok Pai, has said.
Addressing presspersons here on Saturday, he said that the government had set up such units in 21 districts of the State, and asserted that by the end of July, the remaining nine districts too would have the facility.
Stating that the centres had been functioning for nearly a year, he said people were not making use of it because of lack of publicity. Dr. Pai said that each centre has a 40-bed unit for 20 men and women each, for treatment and rehabilitation.
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He said the government had also launched a scheme called Mano Chaitanya, under which psychiatrists and psychologists were made available in each primary health centre of the State on every Tuesday, which was nicknamed ‘Super Tuesday’.
He said the programme had been taken up with the assistance of the Karnataka chapter of the Indian Psychiatric Society. He said that though India was among the countries with the highest number of persons suffering from psychological disorders, it severely lacked in the number of doctors to treat them.
He said that over 18 crore people in India were suffering from various psychological disorders, while the number of doctors available was only 7,000; while several of the doctors have shifted to foreign countries.
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Dr. Pai said the task force was making efforts to raise the number of psychiatrists in the State. “Thankfully, Karnataka has taken the initiative to tackle this largely neglected problem, for which the task force has been constituted,” he said.
Ashok Pai, Chairman of the Karnataka State Mental Health Taskforce, laments that Bengaluru is soon going to be the “suicide capital” of the country due to the number of suicides taking place here.
He said that owing to fast-changing lifestyle, people were unable to cope with the new atmosphere and facing enormous stress, which was forcing them to end their lives.
“More shocking is the fact that even high school and college students take this extreme step because of academic stress. There is an urgent need to deal with the dangerously increasing trend,” he said.