After not securing the expected grade in the board examinations, 17-year-old Priya (name changed) fallen into the clutches of depression, whereas 32-year-old Sumit (name changed) turned alcoholic after he lost his job. Unable to cope up with the acute mental pressure, both victims took the help of trained and experienced psychiatric at state’s State Mental Health Institute (SMHI) established five years ago in the outskirts of the capital city and finally recuperated from their illness after having medication.
Shockingly, the patients having psychiatric and severe psychiatric disorders not only from different districts of Uttarakhand but also patients from neigbhouring States also visit the institute in order to have best available medical care and to completely recuperate from their illness.
Scores of patients, who complain of anxiety disorders, mood disorders, psychotic disorders, eating disorders, impulse control and addiction disorders, personality disorders, adjustment disorder dissociative disorders, factitious disorders, somatoform disorders, tic disorders etc. seek the medical care the institute.
Despite the fact the around five years have passed since the formation of the institute, the institute is yet to provide complete psychiatry treatment to those patients, who are suffering from the different types of disorders. The hospital is facing the acute shortage of mental health professionals, para-medical staff, lab technicians and above all, psychiatric social workers.
The social stigma always carries with the families of those patients who suffer from mental illness and these families completely depend on traditional healers or quacks operating across the state. Those suffering from epilepsy are usually confined to separate rooms or families consult quacks but some may be lucky to have proper medication after consulting psychiatric at the institute.
The busy lifestyle and intense pressure in office and educational institutions has forcing the patients suffering from anxiety and depression and particularly in the age group of 20-35 years. Despite the fact the institute caters the medical need of 60-70 patients per day, the institute is yet to set up pathology laboratory at the campus and even the services of a trained psychologists are absent at the hospital.
The role of a psychologist is important when patients have to be counselled and before and after the treatment as he can undertake psycho-diagnosis and assess levels of mental retardation. In an exclusive interaction with The Pioneer, Dr JS Bisht, psychiatrist and officiating Chief Medical Superintendent, SMHI said that the patients from Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh etc. come to institute in order to have proper medical care.
“Special focus has been laid by the institute administration to take care of human rights while providing the medical and health care to patients suffering from severe psychiatric disorders. “Although the institute is 30-bedded, the administration somehow managed to admit 30-35 patients in the male and female wards of the institute”, he reiterated, adding that no patient is admitted in the cell.
Dr Bisht said that a large number of teenagers suffer from anxiety and substance abuse and they also completely recuperate from their illness with proper counseling and medication and also expressed his concern over the issue that the teenagers who suffer from minor depression are at a higher risk of suffering from psychiatric disorders in the later age of their life.
He also stressed that that those patients who are detected with the psychiatric disorders at the early age can recuperate completely in comparison to those who come at the last stage of their illness. He also stressed that if a person is experiencing disruption in thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to others and daily functioning, he should immediately consult registered medical practitioners instead of visiting quacks.