One in five Indians needs mental health counselling

Mumbai: One out of five people need counselling at least once in their lives. What's more, about 6% of people need medications for mental health problems.      According to the government's statistics, 20% of Indians need counselling at some point of their lives. One per cent of the population suffers from serious mental health  disorders, while 5-10% of Indians suffer from moderate disorders.      The figures have prompted the BMC to not only acknowledge mental health problems, but also come up with a multi-pronged proactive approach for the first time to tackle the problems. By December this year, the BMC will start a 'Life is beautiful' helpline in a public-private-partnership.      The proposal for a helpline was discussed last year, but failed to take off.      "We will hold a meeting on Wednesday to revive the helpline plan," said Manisha Mhaiskar, additional commissioner (health). "Studies say that there is a golden period before a person commits suicide, wherein, if he/she talks to someone about the problem, a suicide can be prevented. With this idea in mind, we want to create a helpline under a public-private partnership, which will counsel those contemplating suicide," she said. 'Increased social alienation results in depression'      Dr S h u b h a n g i Parkar, head of the psychiatry department at KEM Hospital, said that the prevalence of mental health issues ranges from 10 to as many as 370 people per every 1,000 population in various parts of the country.      "We as a society are going through this phenomenon of urbanization and industrialization. While earlier our society was an integrated one, we are now seeing alienation on a large scale. It is because of this that so many people suffer from depression and subsequent mental health problems," she said.      In fact, depression, the commonest form of mental illness, is prevalent in 30.7 out of 1,000 people in urban areas like Mumbai, according to psychiatrists.      Moreover, neurotic depression, a mood disorder consisting of chronic depression with less severe but much longer lasting symptoms, is believed to be prevalent in 22.8 people out of every 1,000.      Psychotic depression, a more serious form of a mental illness, that may actually require hospitalization, is prevalent in 7.8 out of every 1,000 people.      Besides, in order to integrate mental health care along with general health, the BMC plans to train medical officers for primary counseling of depression patients.      "Before this financial year is over, at least 26 of the 161-odd civic dispensaries will be equipped with counseling centres. We will soon start training medical officers to enable them to perform the primary counselling. These dispensaries will in turn be connected to tertiary care hospitals like KEM, Sion and Nair Hospitals, where the patients can be sent in case any serious problems are detected," said Mhaiskar.