Ranchi Institute of Neuro-Psychiatry and Allied Sciences (RINPAS) got its new Acting Director, Dr Subhas Soren. Dr Soren took the charge of office on January 12 and is associated with RINPAS since May 2007. Dr Soren discusses about the various aspects and challenges as RINPAS Director, with The Pioneer. Excerpts:
RINPAS director post always stands in controversy for some or other reasons. How things will things change in RINPASIJ
I am here to prove myself and will give my 100 per cent to manage the things. As far as controversy is concerned I am not the correct person to speak about it, as these things are solely dependent on Government.
With the changing time and mindset, what sort of cases is presently getting registered at RINPASIJ
As there is a drastic change in society, we are dealing with the cases of addiction especially among the teenagers between age group 14 to 19. Kids are addicted to substantial abuse like Dendrite, alcohol, Marijuana (Ganjaa). The main reasons of addiction are peer pressure, as teenage kids like to experiment with things and most importantly they lack moral and ethical values, here parental guidance is must which lacks in most of the cases. On the other side the concept of liberalization, privatization and globalization had influenced the kids so much that they cannot distinguish between what is right and they easily fall prey to these immoral activities.
Unlike other communities and with changing time maximum cases of drugs abuse are now being seen in tribal youths too. What is the main reasonIJ
Yes, I agree with the fact that today maximum cases of drug abuse are registered among the tribal youths. The main factor behind it is that inspite of rise in educational status, the community is still carrying its age-old tradition, which involves consumption of alcohol while celebrating festivals, marriage ceremony, etc. Moreover, tribal community social issues are not being targeted by the concerned authorities.
Even after 69 years of independence, neither the Government nor the NGOs have completely eradicated the issue of ‘Witchcraft’ practices in State. WhyIJ
Definitely, apart from social factors various psychological factors plays important role in it. The foremost psychological factor regarding the aspect is that people do not trust each other and jealousy is other concern; there is always a doubt factor about each other among people especially in rural belts which leads to heinous crimes and women being the soft target are dragged into it. lack of education is the other issue.
Any awareness campaign is planned by RINPAS to deal with such casesIJ
Awareness campaign comes under primary prevention and presently we are focusing only on secondary prevention i.e...Treatment of patients. There are certain constraints like we lack human resource, proper planning and initiatives taken by the government. Only with private partnership or CSR programme we can organise awareness campaign on wider scale.
What kinds of constraints are there, which hampers the smooth functioning of RINPASIJ
We are having the team of 11 doctors only and daily we deal with at least 600 indoor patients and approximately 400 OPD patients. Undoubtedly, we are overburdened but inspite of everything, we have extended our services in Khunti, Saraikela, Gumla, Jamshedpur, Daltonganj and Dumka and our experts organizes regular check up camps at these districts.
What can be done to make youths aware about depression, addiction and other related issuesIJ
Apart from normal academic concepts, kids should be made aware about three important subjects which include sex education, substance abuse and education about prevention of AIDS. These topics are need of time and can only be improvised by school managements.