The Rajya Sabha on Monday passed the Mental Health Care Bill 2013, which provides for protection and promotion of rights of persons with mental illness during the delivery of health care in institutions and in the community. Replying to a debate on the legislation, Health Minister JP Nadda termed it as “humane and progressive” and said its focus was to provide better support and facilities to the people suffering from various kinds of mental illnesses. “This is a historic and progressive Bill. It has been a long standing effort. It is patient-centric and focusses on how more facilities and support could be provided to the patients,” Nadda said. He said around 6-7 per cent of the country’s population suffered from some kind of mental illnesses, while 1-2 per cent suffers from acute mental disease.
Nadda admitted that there was shortage of medical staff dealing with mental health in the country and the Government is trying hard to have more such specialists. Initiating the discussion on the Bill, Madhusudan Mistry (Congress) said there was an urgent need to upgrade the mental healthcare infrastructure in the country and increasing the number of
psychiatrists and care-givers.
He said there was no data in the country on the number of persons suffering from mental illness, but broadly it was considered to be around one per cent of the population. Another crucial issue, Mistry said was that the Bill does not shed much light on the treatment and availability of cheap medicines.
Earlier, Congress member T Subbirami Reddy raised a point of order saying the bill had as many as 134 amendments and sought to know if a new Bill could be drafted. He was supported by his party colleague Jairam Ramesh, with even Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien observing that the point of order raised by Reddy was “very valid” but asked them to raise the issue when the measure was taken up for passage.
While AK Selvaraj (AIADMK) said it was a matter of concern that barely one psychiatrist was available for every 4 lakh population, Kahkashan Parveen (JD-U) asked the Government to pay attention to the plight of
destitute women and warned that some provisions of the bill could be utilised against women by in-laws, who could escape arrest after driving women to suicide in the name of mental illness.
Dilip Kumar Tirkey (BJD) said it was an irony that India had barely 43 mental hospitals for a population of 125 crore.
Ashok Siddharth (BSP) warned that as per WHO report 36 per cent of India's population may suffer from depression. Every one woman out of four and every man out of 10 suffered from some kind of mental ailment, he said, adding that the sale of medicines for mental health problems has risen 528 per cent in the last 10 years. ENDS