Irfan Tramboo
Srinagar, Apr 29: The National Tele Mental Health Programme (NTMHP), known as Tele-MANAS, which was also launched in Kashmir in 2022, has found a space in the renowned medical journal ‘The Lancet’—one of the oldest and highest-impact academic journals in the world.
An expert comment titled ‘Reducing the mental health treatment gap in Kashmir: scaling up to maximise the potential of telepsychiatry’ published in the journal as ‘Correspondence’, has advocated for scaling up telepsychiatry to maximize its potential and addressing the significant mental health burden in J&K, which remains largely unaddressed despite previous efforts.
The comment, conceptualized by Dr Arshad Hussain of the Department of Psychiatry, Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, GMC, Srinagar, Bhupinder Kumar of Health & Medical Education (H&ME) Department J&K, and Manasi Kumar from Department of Psychiatry, University of Nairobi, Kenya, with Fazle Roub from Department of Psychiatry, Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, GMC, Srinagar, writing the original manuscript, emphasized that telepsychiatry is particularly relevant in regions like J&K that have experienced political conflict and natural disasters, including impacts from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The paper stated that the impetus for scaling up mental health services was provided by the Indian Finance Ministry, which added the budget for Tele-MANAS in its Union Budget of 2022 for nationwide coverage. “With an estimated 1.2 billion mobile phone users and 600 million smartphone users, NTMHP is expected to reach a large portion of patients, eventually reducing the colossal treatment gap.”
The comment highlighted that despite efforts by authorities to increase the number of trained mental health professionals, the mental health burden in the region remains largely unaddressed. “In response, policymakers initiated the Tele MANAS centre in Kashmir, which prioritizes mental health needs by introducing more professionals who can provide services in the local Kashmiri and Urdu languages.”
Dr Arshad Hussain told Excelsior that despite the initiative and its success being publicly known, the team wanted to present it to academic circles for feedback. “The primary objective is to gather feedback from academic professionals around the world, with the goal of improving and enhancing the effectiveness of the initiative,” he said.
The comment has further noted that since its launch in November 2022, the Tele MANAS centre in Kashmir has received 4,000 calls, with people seeking professional help for mental illness from every district of the Union Territory.
“These numbers convey the enormous demand and needs but also show that Tele MANAS is acceptable to people and they are initiating contact with mental health providers. The current step is expected to ensure cost-and-time-effective and comprehensive services for the poorly served population of the region, strengthening mental health, an area that has been historically neglected in Jammu and Kashmir.”
It is important to note that the Tele-MANAS initiative was started in Kashmir as part of a national initiative launched by the Government of India in October 2022. The program provides free tele-mental health services round the clock, particularly for people in remote or underserved areas, in response to the mental health crisis amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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