The Much Needed Improvements in Mental Healthcare Services Sector in India

The incidence of mental illness cases has increased rapidly in India over the past decades. As such, it is important that the healthcare sector covers all aspects of health, integrating both medical and mental health. Effective coordination of mental health services with general healthcare can promise a better treatment for distressed and disturbed individuals in the healthcare system. Mental healthcare services are equally important to physical factors in restoring patient health. And though the Indian mental healthcare services sector is gradually gaining recognition in the recent years, still there is a need of various improvements and government interventions to establish its significance and strengthen its position in the healthcare arena.

The mental health services sector demands a wide variety of social and educational interventions, ranging from public awareness, mental health education, early identification of disorders, treatment for acute illness, long-term care, and rehabilitation. Moreover, mental disorders consist of various clinical conditions, of which some are self-limiting while others needing lifelong medication. It is hence necessary to instill the importance of treatment for mentally ill persons and not only bring awareness but rather encourage them to seek help on their own, when and where needed. When it comes to planning and improving mental healthcare services, all of these factors are crucial and should be essentially taken into account.

Mental Healthcare Scenario in India

India accounts for almost 15 percent of the mental, neurological, and drug abuse disorders in the world. It is expected that by the year 2025, over 32 lakh people in the country would be affected by dementia. Most of the people with mental disorders in the country lack proper treatment facilities, mainly due to the huge demand-supply gap. As per statistics, it is stated that there are merely 0.3 psychiatrists per 100,000 people in the country, which is fairly low for the existing need. In India, more than 40 percent of the people with mental disorders have never sought any kind of mental health treatment from professionals. With these unmet mental healthcare service needs, India has to make necessary improvements to the sector to generate awareness, improve mental healthcare accessibility, and increase the utilization of mental health services.

Looking at the situation, it would be prudent to integrate mental healthcare with general health services and utilize the self-care and informal care approaches in the mental health domain. Currently, the country is experiencing a paradigm shift in the acquisition of knowledge, with the dissemination of information and skills related to mental health to the larger section of the population, which is certainly both a challenge and opportunity for the country to improve its mental healthcare services sector.

Community Engagement is the Need of the Hour

There need to be greater efforts taken to empower the community in regards to mental health and awareness. Over the past few decades, the mental healthcare model has changed a lot from the institutionalization of mentally-ill persons or those suffering from mental disorders to creating a community care approach that is backed up the primary healthcare. To improve the existing conditions, more attention has to be given to the individual human rights, respect for the mentally ill, and community engagement. 

Supportive care, counseling, and self-help are the need of the hour. Providing basic counseling to individuals regarding acute mental health problems can help them in early diagnosis of the problem and seek treatment at the earliest. Experts state that community engagement along with increased support for health workers in collaborating with traditional or alternative medicine practitioners would be the key to provide more affordable, accessible, and widely acceptable mental healthcare services in India.

The Need for Government Interventions

There have been several government interventions and a lot of private industry participation in recent years to take up psychological disorders and mental illnesses as a nation-wide issue of concern.  More and more independent mental-health professionals and healthcare service providers are engaging in treatment services related to psychology, psychiatry, and psychotherapy. This trend would certainly boost the mental-healthcare sector and would pave way for opening larger numbers of mental healthcare services centers across the country to deal with the increasing number of mental health or psychological cases.

Moreover, it is high time that the healthcare sector expands its use of technology beyond the medical care into mental health services to timely and accurately diagnose mental illnesses and disorders. The effective harnessing of technology can help deliver quality and efficient mental health services and reach out to the millions of unreached communities. With digital infrastructure and video conferencing, mental healthcare services can be expanded and enhanced.

Overall, the present challenge in the mental healthcare services sector in the country is an effective bridging of the demand-supply gap and utilization of existing resources. For this, adept and knowledgeable healthcare professionals with quality health education are what the sector as well as the country needs. IIHMR has been a leading institution delivering quality healthcare management education to aspirants, thereby giving academically and technically skilled healthcare professionals to the industry each year. IIHMR caters well to the changing needs of the healthcare domain by conducting executive training programs/courses that not only promote academic excellence but also equally sharpen the students on the practical aspects to meet the actual requirements of the healthcare industry.