The district mental health department has launched tele-psychiatric service, a first of its kind facility for south Tamil Nadu to ‘reach the unreached.’
J. Periyar Lenin, Psychiatrist and Coordinator, District Mental Health Programme (DMHP), says the novel system was launched recently to provide mental health service to the needy at their doorstep.
The psychiatrist, who attends to about 70 patients a day at ‘Dawa-Dua’ mental health care centre at the Erwadi Dargah, offers treatment to the mentally ill patients admitted at the nearby Kattupalli Dargah through tele-psychiatric service. “The service has been launched in the Kadaladi block in the first phase under the DMHP and Community Mental Health Project (CMHP) and will be extended in phases to other blocks where 3G networking facility is available,” Dr. Lenin says.
The service was extremely useful in attending to violently-behaving mentally ill patients who could not be brought to the Centre, he said. After interacting with the family members of the patients and observing the behaviour of the patients, he offers medical intervention.
The CMHP staff hand over the prescribed medicines and after the patients calm down they were brought to the Centre, he says. “I have served 10 patients at the Kattupalli Dargah without visiting them in person,” Dr. Lenin told The Hindu here on Friday.
The psychiatrist offers the tele-psychiatric service during his visit to the ‘Dawa-Dua’ Centre on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. On the other days, he visits taluk hospitals and primary health centres. Patients afflicted with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression and acute psychosis top the list of patients visiting the ‘Dawa-Dua’ Centre, he says adding 710 mentally ill cases have been registered at the centre after it was launched in November 2012.
More than 600 patients visit the centre for regular follow-up, he says. The patients include about 400 from other districts and about 100 from other states, especially from Kerala.
