Irfan Tramboo
SRINAGAR, Feb 19: To ensure that people with mental health conditions talk about their illnesses and receive early treatment and counselling, the Directorate of Health Services, Kashmir (DHSK) has started training doctors from various disciplines in the identification and management of mental health disorders for a wider impact.
It is being done under the ‘Walev Kath Karav’ (Let’s Talk) initiative which started in January this year and will continue till March. Under the initiative, apart from training doctors from other specialties, 8 notified Psychiatrists are releasing videos in which they talk about a variety of mental health issues and the ways of getting the necessary treatment.
Apart from that, there is also a list of notified doctors who have been tasked to talk about mental health issues on TV, Radio and other mediums. “The initiative is aimed at breaking the taboo so that people can talk about the mental health issues they are facing,” Dr Majid Shafi, Nodal Officer, Mental Health and Addiction Treatment, DHSK told Excelsior.
He said that there is a stigma associated with talking about mental health issues, and people are not talking about it. “They do not reach out to seek medical help and guidance due to which their condition gets worse,” he said.
About the training of the doctors, the officials said the medical officers, paediatricians; general physicians and others, are being trained about mental health issues in collaboration with the Government Medical College (GMC), Srinagar. “Because for people, meeting them is easier than going to a Psychiatrist and if we up-skill them-which is on-it would surely have an impact,” Dr Shafi said.
Pertinent to mention here that the doctors who appear in the awareness videos also talk about the available helplines, such as Tele-MANAS (14416), being run by NHM in collaboration with IMHANS and ‘Sukoon’ (18001807202), being run by the Divisional Administration, Kashmir, in support from DHSK, where people can talk about their issues and get a prompt response even anonymously.
Interestingly, since the launch of ‘Walev Kath Karav’, the officials said that these helplines have witnessed an increase in the number of calls, especially the Tele-MANAS where the number of calls has increased more than twice.
Dr Mushtaq Ahmad Rather, Director, Health Services, Kashmir, told Excelsior that the program has so far shown to be effective because of the positive feedback received from the public. “We had to intervene and take unconventional measures because of the severity and burden of mental health illnesses,” he said.
According to the official, the majority of calls to these helplines from Kashmir are about basic mental health conditions like anxiety and mood disorders, while calls about serious mental health conditions are fewer.
Significantly, the 2015 Kashmir Mental Health Survey found that 10% of adult Kashmiris reported having symptoms of severe depression, while 45% of the adult population had considerable signs of mental distress. In addition, the survey found that 26% of people have major symptoms of an anxiety illness and 1 in 5 have significant symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
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