With the Medical Council of India (MCI) remaining cold to its proposal to introduce psychiatry as a subject in MBBS curriculum, the Union Health Ministry has plans to rope in psychiatrists to train general physicians in the States about the mental illness, which is on the rise in the country.
“Unfortunately, the sector is facing acute shortage of professionals. Moreover, the MCI has so failed to look into our proposal to include psychiatry for under-graduates. Hence, we plan to develop a core group of master trainers from across the country to train non-specialist doctors to address mental health problems.
“We have already developed training module ‘essential psychiatry in general practice’ which can be used by these trainers to impart education to the general physicians about the problem,” said a senior official from the Union Health Ministry.
He said that the idea is to build capacity at primary
level which would go a long way in early identification of patients with mental health problems and ensure their early treatment.
The official explained that two workshops have been proposed next month for training of master trainers who will be psychiatrists from medical colleges/hospitals/ mental health institutes to be nominated by the state government. Once trained, these master trainers will then work in their respective states to build capacity of non-psychiatrist medical officers under the District Mental Health Plan.
They will also facilitate training of district level non-specialist health work force to be conducted at the National Institute of Health and Family Welfare, an organization under the Health Ministry over a period of six months.
However, not many are sure of its success. “It is a laudable plan but how it will be translated into reality it will remain to be seen. First, mental health is not a priority for many States, second many times the trained medical officers get transferred to other area of working. In fact, declining funds for the mental health programme speaks volumes of apathy towards the sector,” said a psychiatrist from a government hospital.
As per the Ministry, the country needs 11,500 psychiatrists but has just 3,500. The entire mental health workforce, comprising clinical psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric social workers and psychiatric nurses stands at 7,000, while the actual requirement is 54,750.
Mental-health issues like depression are one of the biggest triggers of suicide in India, which accounts for more than 258,000 of the 804,000 suicide deaths worldwide in 2012, according to the WHO.