India Straining to Bring Therapy, Mental Health Services to Standard
January 1st, 2010
As one of the world’s leading developing economies, India has been under intense global pressure and scrutiny in recent years as it attempts to improve the quality of life for its citizens. But mental health services such as therapy and counseling are still lacking on an enormous scale, according to recent reports from some of the industry’s leading professionals in the field. Citing numbers as low as four thousand psychiatrists country-wide, the reports note that many citizens, especially in rural areas, are left to seek help from spiritual healers, many of whom treat mental health concerns as punishments or demons.
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While India is making rapid strides of development on one side, there is also a very soft underbelly where there is poverty, lack of education and health facilities. Although a lot of development is taking places in cities, rural areas are nothing to cheer about and you are very true when you talk about the ‘spiritual healers’ there… I saw a documentary and it just shocked me…
Although practices followed by developed countries can be studied and adopted, it cannot be adopted in the same exact way as the population there is large and the demographies are different. Yet, with proper modifications, I am pretty sure it would help.
What always baffles me when I see stories like this from anywhere in the world is just how much so many of our priorities are so out of whack with what they need to be. We always have the money to test nuclear weapons and to make war; we have the money to bailout companies that should be bankrupt anyway; but we never seem to have the funds to help those in need. Those are services that are allowed to fall by the wayside yet to me those are some of the more important things that we need to be looking after.
I agree, Jason. When did we stop caring about other people’s quality of life? It’s only by an accident of birth that it’s not us living there. We have such comfy lives in the West and half don’t even know how lucky they are to not have to live with those levels of poverty and lack of healthcare. Can’t the richer countries give a little or preferably a lot to help bring up the standards in the poorer ones? We’re human beings and human beings should help each other. I’d rather bail out a depressed man or woman anywhere in the world and find them the help they need than a greedy corporation anyday.
“Based on WHO standard, we are 300% short on psychiatrists based on the population-psychiatrist ratio required.” The simple answer would be to encourage psychiatrists and psychologists from the US or European countries with a surplus of trained mental health professionals to work there. What’s so hard about that?
Did it occur to anybody that perhaps they like to deal with spiritual healers over doctors or counselors? Let’s not be too quick to be dismissive of other cultures and their belief systems. Supposing a Westerner said they wanted to talk to a priest or pastor and not a therapist, or not at all?
You wouldn’t bat an eyelid because you understand that faith can move mountains and perform miracles that science or modern medicine can’t explain.
The crux of this is not related to challenging their belief systems. It’s about them not even having a CHOICE. Your Westerner has the luxury of options. Will he/she be seeing a church leader, a therapist, a counselor, an acupuncturist, an energy worker?…
You get the picture. You can choose. These poor people can’t. Indians should have options and be able to make an informed choice, no different from us. That’s a real shame they can’t.
Sparky, that’s not a simple answer! Have you any idea how much an Indian psychiatrist gets paid compared to a US or European one? It’s a pittance. Even if money wasn’t a stumbling block, there’s the language barrier. There are several languages and dialects, too many to record accurately their numbers apparently.
http://indic-computing.sourceforge.net/faq/indian-languages.html
A simple answer? I don’t think so. If there was, WHO would have that in place already.
The poor get poorer, the sick get sicker, and the rich get richer. And we have the audacity to call ourselves civilized. Rinse, lather, repeat. Pass the sick bag please.
LaScala, is this a satisfactory solution? Indian-born psychiatrists and psychologists need trained and dispatched to these rural areas ASAP. Affluent countries could assist in funding that. While it’s dreadful to see psychiatrists be forced to work with patients on the sidewalk, it is more desirable than no care at all. Kudos to the doctors for helping under strained circumstances the most vulnerable of all.
Yes, the situation is bad, no doubt about it. But measures are being undertaken by the Government there … they are introducing many measures for medical professionals to practice in rural areas, where there is a lack of healthcare facilities and professionals… Lets be optimistic and hope that situation improves in a big way.
While this may not be an ideal scenario, isn’t there something that we can take away from this story? I mean there are thousands who benefit from the help that they receive from spiritual leaders, why can it not be the same in this situation as well? I know that for many diseases traditional medicine is the best route to take but that is not always the case, otherwise the human race would not have continued to thrive for the thousands of years before advances in the sciences were made.
The numbers and the ideal conditions mentioned by the WHO should be different for different parts of the world, so that each country has a realistic goal that it can achieve. You cannot give the same numbers to every country and expect all of them to reach the numbers, can you?
It will definitely take a lot of time to bring all facilities to a cetain level because of the huge population there, and also money will definitely be a constraint… It is not easy, but neither is it impossible. With the right policies and will of the the people there, they will definitely be able to provide standard healthcare facilities to each and everyone.
its not the uestion of money or of the population…it all lies in d mindset of the people and the authorities specifically.there is too much of red-tape in places like india whenever there is a program introduced or a work is being undertaken.unless this lethargic attitude improves,nothing will happen well in time.
The situation is definately bad. I believe the Government in India has failed the people by not placing an high priority on the disease. The attitudes of those in authority have failed to meet the needs of the population. Progress is possible, but it want happen overnight. With proper mentorship, aid, resources, and goal-setting I believe that medical community in India can improve the quality of life and services that they provide to the people in India.
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