WORLD MENTAL HEALTH DAY 2023
(Dr. Radhakrishnan (MBBS, MD, DPM, FIPS & FIASP and Adv. P. A. Chacko S.J.)
We are living in our modern progressive world, where growth and development are priority issues. But, alongside these, the arena of fast-growing media entertainment items, economic issues, social problems, discrimination, family breakdown, issues of competition, urge for quick success, and the like, is speeding up the increase of mental cases. Depression is reported to be one of the leading causes of mental disability.
One in eight persons globally suffer mental health disorders. One in three women and one in five men are expected to face severe depression in their lives. Some suffer from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Among people aged between 15-29, suicide is seen as the fourth leading cause of death. It is also acknowledged through studies that people in the grip of severe mental conditions are victims of premature death.
In the Indian scenario, “in 2017, 197.3 million people had mental disorders, including 45.7 million with depressive disorders and 44.9 million with anxiety disorders…One in seven Indians were affected by mental disorders of varying severity in 2017.” (thelancet.com)
“As of 2017, more than 14 percent of the total population in India suffer from variations of mental disorders. The majority of this share includes older adult female in India.” (statista.com)
Studying the Kerala scenario, Jaison Joseph, D. Hari Sankar, and Devaki Nambiar, in their research article, the Burden of Mental Health Illness in Kerala: a study from 2002 to 2018 (Published: BMC Public Health), highlight that: “In 2002, Kerala had 194 persons per hundred thousand population with mental retardation and intellectual disability which increased to 300 persons per hundred thousand population in 2018.” This report concludes that “Kerala experienced a rapid rise in mental health morbidity between 2002 and 2018.”
The unprecedented rise of drug addiction among teen agers and youth in Kerala is a cause of worry. “There were 26,629 cases of teenage drug abuses in 2022, a 300% rise since 2016…Among Keral’s drug users below the age of 21, 40 percent were children below 18 years of age.” (Blessy Mathew Prasad in thecitizen.in). Many of these people end up in depression, anxiety and other serious mental issues affecting family breakdown, wayward behaviour, anti-social acts, etc.
However, it is a welcome development that Kerala is reported to be one of the few states having a mental health policy and is also “ahead in terms of funding, awareness, care giving, and professionals (in service delivery.)” (orfonline.org.).
In order to highlight the importance of mental health, to transform people’s age-old discriminatory attitude and behaviour towards mental patients into acts of care and concern, and to respect mental patients as human beings like all others, the World Health Organization celebrates every year October 10 as the World Mental Health Day.
Such a celebration has been a catalyst for revolutionary changes the world over.
Every year a slogan is proposed. This year’s slogan is: Mental Health is a universal Human Right. Our Minds, Our Rights.
It is the duty of all of us to render a helping hand to human beings in the grip of mental issues.
Clifford Whittingham Beers is reputed to be the Founder of Mental Health Movement in America. In 1900, he himself was confined to a private mental institution for depression. There he experienced and witnessed harsh and inhuman treatment by the staff. His best-seller autobiography, A Mind that Found itself (1908), spells out an account of his hospitalization and abuses.
Moving on, he set up the ‘National Committee for Mental hygiene’ in 1909. In 1913 he organized an outpatient mental clinic.
In these last two centuries, many humanitarian individuals and service-minded institutions have contributed towards revolutionary changes in the field of mental health.
India has made much progress in this area. Article 21 of the Indian Constitution guarantees to every person the right to dignified living. It is a human and fundamental right.
The Government of India’s Mental Health Act of 2017 is a good example. It gives prime importance to human rights.
Section 18 of the Act mandates the government’s responsibility to provide mental health care to all the citizens, both outpatients and inpatients.
The government has to organize rehabilitation programs. Children and aged people need to be provided special facilities for care and treatment.
From Primary Health Care centers to Medical Colleges, emergency care and necessary medicines have to be provided.
Wherever Government medical care is not easily available, patients obtaining treatment in private hospitals will get reimbursement of their expenditure from the Central Government.
Welfare pension will be given to care givers. All mental patients will get pension under the National Disability Pension Scheme. Patients having 40 percent or more mental issue will be given permanent pension.
The Act also stipulates that it is the duty of the government to prevent all forms of mental and physical torture or economic exploitation of the patients.
Free Legal aid will be provided to all mental patients.
Thus, let us come forward to protect, promote and guarantee all mental patients their human and fundamental rights as our humanitarian gesture. Light a lamp and dispel darkness.
